The quietening effect of looking at the tomatoes on the bench even surprised me a little. Eyes slowly scanning over their little green surfaces, searching for that hint of red that would soon burst through. Their tiny foliage hats slowly shrivelling as their connection with the plant in which had shoved them into their small tomatoey glory was now gone.
Unceremoniously yanked out, their yellowing leaves and and wilted limbs telling me it was time. The caterpillars had also moved in, my vigilant watching had wavered and they had seized their opportunity. A greedy multilegged stampede towards the prize line- launching themselves on to the not yet ready fruit. With green tomato stuffed through out their squishy bodies. They would seemingly wave to me in indignation and a last hungry effort as I plucked and squished them off in annoyance.
It was me or them, and I had no intention of it being me. This was my biggest crop this year. No easy feat growing from those small pots in the midst of the concrete city courtyard. No easy feat.
So it was with a smidge of growers pride I made this tart. A simple one, with onions, mozzarella, fetta and those sweet little tomatoes.
Home grown little tomatoes…I salute you.
Tomato, onion and Fetta Tart
Pastry
200gms cold butter
2 cups plain flour (300gms)
110gms natural yogurt
In a food processor pulse flour and butter until resembles bread crumbs. Tip out into a bowl and add yogurt. Mix through, a quick knead until a smooth consistency and then roll out pastry on a lightly floured board. Roll to the thickness you want (I find this amount is enough for two large sized tarts, and adding it to a greased tart tray.
as many cherry tomatoes as you have
half a finely chopped spanish onion
about 100g of mozzarella
one small block of crumbled fetta
one sprig of rosemary
Lay all ingredients in a layered fashion until it reaches the top of the pastry sides of the uncooked pastry shell and bake until it smells delicious at 190C.
The challenge was on. My Eat Local challenge, and this was the night to be doing. A chaotic evening after a rough day. Not the best choices to start off an challenge but I was wearing it. However it was what we were eating that was more important.
The Menu
For the adults- A raw kale salad with hard boiled eggs. (rice, kale, shallots, brown onion, flat leafed parsley, corn, carrot, lime juice, olive oil, chilli and eggs.)
For the kiddo’s- A similar tamed down version, swapping the kale for lettuce. (rice, corn, lettuce, carrot, olive oil and eggs.)
Eggs- Ed’s Eggs, Jirandali Farm- Mangrove Mountain (85km from Sydney)
Chilli- my courtyard
Over all dinner was a success. The kids were happy to eat it all and Mr Chocolate said it was all delicious. He did throw a little Caramelised Balsamic Vinegar on top of his jazz it up a bit- a company that produces 250km’s away. I didn’t, but was kicking myself three hours later for not putting a little more protein in there or fat of some sort…I was hungry!! I guess this is the tricky bit, locally produced vegetarian protein. Besides eggs, what other alternatives do I have? To find out next time.
Tidbits
– Foodconnect- Sydney is no longer, and OOOOBY has taken over. Similar concept, and just as committed. This is from their $39 delivered veg box.
– The Locavore Edition– for Australian east coast readers, there is a comprehensive guide to both NSW and Victoria so far, (with Tasmania in the nominating stage.)
How about you? Interested in taking the challenge?
For more details see this post here and for the nitty gritty of ‘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, (I will be post here in the last week of the month). It sounds easy enough at this stage, but as the year progresses will it continue to?
Edit– Have a peek over here at Christine’s Eat Local deliciousness
When a surprise box of plums comes home, there is a tiny pause then a lovely mixture of excitement and ooooh, what am I going to do with them all!
Despite my fervent wishing I still don’t have a walk in pantry, with darkened rustic wooden shelves of assorted heights to store all my preserved goodies on. On the other side of the pantry, I also don’t have a long fermenting bench where I can store all of my current fermenting goodness. What I did have was a box of plums that needed sorting asap, a crowded bench top for fermenting and a small portion of a dresser cupboard to store things in.
I also had enthusiasm, and that should never be underestimated.
So what was to be made with that of box plums?
Plum Crumble
Plum Jam
Chilli Plum Sauce
and the most exciting of them all
Plum Honey Mead
Plum Honey Mead was such a great experiment. The picture here is of the mixture at 24 hours old. Already it’s started to bubble a little, which only increased- and almost volcanically. I was happily telling anyone that paused for longer than thirty seconds beside me, (which can be awkward at pedestrian crossings and other generally non chatty public places.) More to come on this intriguing stuff, so in the mean time how about a Chilli Plum Sauce Recipe? Dead easy and surprisingly versatile in what you can smother things with.
Chilli Plum Sauce
8 plums washed, stoned and quartered
100g fresh chilli
1 medium brown onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 cups (420g) brown sugar
1 1/2 cups (375mls) white vinegar
2 tsp salt
Process plums, chilli, onion, garlic together in a blender and then into a pot. Add the sugar, salt and vinegar and bring to a gentle simmer. Keep it at this level until the sauce thickens. Pop into a clean glass jar and keep in the fridge, (or alternatively process and store as you would jam.)
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And to the winner of the little giveaway- Congratulations Zena from Twigs and Twine, I will be in touch shortly to get your address.
As for everyone else that took the time to comment on this post. I have to say, I feel so honoured to be a part of this online community. I know time is precious and there are thousands of incredibly interesting things to be looking at on the internet these days- so taking the time to comment here means a lot.
I also found it so interesting in hearing about what community meant to different people. I think in asking the question, it’s just confirmed things even more for me. Connectedness and a sense of belonging within a community (of any sort) is so incredibly important and so many of us within this small online space here- value that.
As I send virtual loaves of sourdough and little plates of biscuits to you all- again thank you. You all rock.
I’d often thought I would like to do one of those ‘eat local’ challenges. Problem was time was ticking and I was still just thinking about it.
I needed to get up and out there, doing it. I already think our family’s way of eating is fairly mindful, eating with a conscious but I wanted that extra push, that little bit more. If I was a single person I could push it a lot, a hell of a lot more, but I’m not. So in consideration to my three still small children with sometimes picky taste buds I’m going to set the bar just a little higher than what it is. See how we go and then hopefully move on from there. Mr Chocolate’s taste buds are fairly in tune with mine, so as long as I don’t serve platefuls of sauerkraut and buckwheat he’s reasonably easy to please on the dinner front.
So what’ the challenge?
Once a month, a meal created from local food. Pretty simple really.
Also keeping in mind-organic, free range, spray free, from the farmers market, garden grown, as little packaging as possible, and knowing where it has all been sourced from. Many of our family meals incorporate a lot of these aspects already, but as one set meal, knowing exactly where everything is coming from, or coming as close as I can anyway, (while still keeping in mind- divided emerging taste buds and importantly a budget.)
We live in a small space in the city, growing extra food is simply not an option for us. BUT there are other foody options and I’m pretty excited to find out what a few more of them might be.
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Local Harvest is a great organisation that runs similar challenges every year. Have a peek for more details on how you can get involved.
Along with what ever I cook up once a week, I’ll also add any great finds or problems I had during the past month- an Eat Local post will be done in the last week of the month.
How about you? Have you done this before? Have you thought about it? Want to give it a crack with me?
I recently wrote a quite lengthy post on eating meat. Of which I got to the end and then just quietly, deleted the whole lot. All 852 words of it.
I felt like I was justifying my own meaty actions. Which is something I didn’t feel like I really wanted to do or needed to do. I was more than happy to engage in an amicable conversation with anyone who cared to listen. I was also more than happy to pass on any food information that I’d come across in my readings. Informed decisions on any level is an empowering thing, especially when it comes to something as important as food.
We all need to eat, it’s how we go about it that’s important.
So will I be made to feel guilty for eating a little meat here and there?
It’s the basis of many heated debates, but at this stage of my life? No. No I won’t.
I believe strongly in a diet based mostly on ‘real’ foods. Food that comes in as natural a state as possible. Keeping processing to a minimum, packaging to a minimum and being able to identify the food in front of you are top of my lists.
I also believe different bodies require different foods. Some people can exist happily as a Fruitarian and others strongly advocate they feel healthier on a Paleo based diet. I wouldn’t like to base my diet on either of these, but I respect the fact that they feel happy and healthy eating as such. I remember sitting in the audience of the His Holiness the Dalai Llama once, and his comment on the fact that he ate meat. Shocked I wasn’t, but happy yes, as he had obviously made an informed decision; and decided he functioned better with a small meat intake.
As meat eaters, vegetarians, vegans, raw enthusiasts, sugar free, gluten free, locavores, we all have choices to make and ethics to consider when we are preparing that dinner plate in front of us. (Unless by chance you are a city-living-raw-vegan-sugar free-gluten free-locavore AND on a family budget, in which case holey moley I would love you to comment and please share your story!)
Pescatarian– love eating canned tuna? Have a look at this snippet on what line and pole fishing actually is, and the value of paying that bit extra for your can of tuna. Also read here on GoodFishBadFish– sustainable seafood, what’s it all about or Slow Fish– and it’s campaign.
Vegetarians– Do you eat seasonally? Food Miles, have you considered them, how many do you clock up?…this site is so very humbling.)
Quorn– What do we know about this myco-protein? Made from mushrooms it isn’t.
Eggs– In what condition hens have your eggs come from? Caged Eggs
Are your meat substitutes highly processed coming in excessive packaging and have a full paragraph of odd sounding ingredients?
There are an array of options for cow milk alternatives- soy, almond, rice. Is there vegetable oil in there. Does this vegetable oil contain palm oil? Sunflower Oil? Added sugar? Food miles on your soy milk? where has the alternative milk been grown. Was it processed in the same place or somewhere else altogether?
Are you using sugar substitutes such as agave syrup. Have you considered the food miles (unless you live in Mexico) and extensive chemical process that is needed in order to obtain this yield?
1 billion takeaway cups and lids each year… {image credit to Responsible Runners}
Coffee– Got a coffee habit- Is it fair trade? Food miles? Excessive packaging on your daily take away coffee cup? Keep Cup– reusable coffee cup
Chocolate- Is it again fair trade? Does it have even more excessive packaging? Does it have an extraordinary amount of food miles? Was it harvested using slave labour? (Despite popular belief the cocoa bean is not produced in Belgium.) Slavery in the Chocolate Industry
There is always an impact on our food choices, regardless of what food types we mostly eat. Pretty much every choice we make has an impact. If more and more people make informed choices about what they are eating and passing a little less judgement on those that eat differently perhaps we would make some sort of head way in our food environment.
Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants…[Michael Pollan]
Our family meat intake is really quite small, we eat a mostly vegetarian diet, and bought meat is always considered; where it has come from and how it was raised. Fruit and vegetables are eaten in season, vegan and gluten free meals are becoming regulars, I try to make as many things from scratch as time allows and we eat on a family budget- keeping things as locally produced based as possible.
This doesn’t make me a sainted eater, it makes me an informed eater and at this stage, that’s the very best I can do.
So, to the next person that gets on their high horse about me making a conscious decision regarding what I have chosen to eat, please don’t. As I might just eat that high horse… I hear they’re quite delicious.
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Thoughts? Input? Ideas? Everything up for discussion in an unbiased nonjudgemental fashion.
I live in a small space in a big city. A small space that when required to hide something my options are sometimes limited. However when I’m not required to hide something, and instead something goes missing that small space can feel quite large. Cavernous even.
You see I lost my cups.
My newly bought cups. I know I had stashed them somewhere ‘safe’ for a small period as I wasn’t quite ready to use them; but when it was time to use them, alas not a cup to be found.
I searched high and I searched low. I pulled everything I owned out and then back in again, only to be repeated again the next day. It was doing my tiny brain in. WHERE did I put those cups!?
If we had a cat I would have blamed whiskers, but we didn’t so the next most likely choice was the pint sized one. Surely she must have put it in a box or something and somehow that same box had grown legs and walked out. Surely it was the only possibility?
So I had to buy more.
The cups were clearly not coming back and we really needed some new drinking cups for the kids. I felt a little embarrassed, but clicked pay and now and a couple of days later, there they were. In all their enamel loveliness again, ready to be drunk from.
Along with the cups, I’ve also been enjoying the baking dishes I bought the first time around as well. I’ll tell you why I love them-
– they’re light weight, which means they don’t have a hefty weight when food is cooked in them like ceramic or glass can do
– they are stackable
– they easily live inside my oven when it’s not being used
– and size wise, I have options. After so many years of no options, I’m loving this one to bits.
When I first considered getting these dishes, I wasn’t entirely sure you could bake in them. I’d always associated enamel ware with camping, or the dogs dinner bowl. Happy to say that association has now changed, you can definitely bake in enamel ware and just quietly…I’m loving doing so.
[My enamelware was bought through the lovely Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores... *ahem* both times. And yes, the other cups turned up as well. Turns out the pint sized one didn’t hide them in a box, her mother did… I now have ten of these cups.]
Cherry and Rhubarb Pie
farmers market cherries and rhubarb 1000g (roughly half and half)
300g sugar
300mls water
2tbls cornflour
Pastry
150g cold butter
50g sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
300g plain flour
1 tbls cold water
In a pot cook the fruit, sugar and water up until softens. Add the cornflour with a tablespoon or so and add into the mixture. Stir through and cook for a further 5 or so minutes. If there is visabally too much excess water just drain a little off for drinking, this will depend on the fruit your are using. Once cooked, stand this mixture aside and begin on the pastry.
In a blender, pulse flour, sugar and butter until resembles bread crumbs. Tip out to a bowl and add vanilla, egg yolk and cold water. Knead lightly until it comes together to form a dough. Wrap in glad wrap and chill in the fridge for about half an hour. Then roll out for your pie shape.
Pop the fruit mixture in and bake for about 35 minutes at 180C.
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I now have a ‘print green’ or pdf option if you would like this recipe for another time. Just click on the green printer icon below and follow the prompts.
I had broad beans and zucchini. Outside, a pot full of mint that was threatening to take over the entire courtyard if I was to let it. Cream that had been sitting on it’s lonesome for far too long and a little fetta that really, really needed sorting out.
What to make, what to make?
Creamy Mint and Broad Beans
A couple of good slugs of olive oil
pop some some new season diced garlic in
some grated zucchini
as many double peeled broad beans as you could be bothered
If I had opened our vegetable box as a kid, and seen cauliflower looking right back at me- I may well have wept a little.
At the very least I probably would have silently gagged.
Not now though. Now, when I see a little cauliflower peeking from a corner, in the Foodconnect box I do a little happy dance. I can’t get enough of it. Teamed up with some leek and potatoes also from the box, (and locally grown) you have yourself an easy peasy seasonal dinner.
Cauliflower, Leek and Potato Soup
one chopped large leek
3 chopped large potatoes
half a head of a large cauliflower
1 vegetable stock cube
about 500mls water
salt and pepper to taste
Saute leeks in a couple of good slugs of olive oil, then the rest of the ingredients and cook until soft. Then blitz, with a hand held mixer.
I did a lot of thinking about those lemons. But none of them was quite right. What to do with you my bowl of tarty yellow fruit?
Gourmet Traveller stepped in. Another winning recipe that really is very easy. The hardest part was squeezing the lemons, which was in no way tricky at all. Love a recipe that is just tasty and simple…and lemony of course.
Purple isn’t a colour that holds a strong part in my life. It seems to come up in flicks and flecks and then disappears again.
When I think of purple I think of the purple cabbage dish my mum used to make as a child…oh how I used to shudder knowing that was going on to my plate. Any offers of her to make it again as an adult have been politely refused as really…you can’t fight history.
Purple, and I think of the beautifully scented lavander that sits outside my front door. A heady large bush that seems to have a constant stream of buzzing bees dancing on it’s purple flowered heads. Brush past it with your hand just after rain shower and you are rewarded with a heady scented smell that clings to finger tips.
I once had an oversized costume jewellery ring with a purple stone centred in the middle. An old flatmate had given it to me on my birthday. It wasn’t a considered birthday present, it was more the fact that I appeared in the room at the same time as he unveiled the ring. We used to joke that he had got it off someones dying finger….given that he used to keep a large axe in his room, and periods of ridiculously erratic behaviour… probably not a joke I would find quite so funny now.
Purple was on my leg recently. A peach sized bruise that I didn’t have the foggiest idea of how it got there. For two weeks I was reminded of the fact that I didn’t remember how something so big and sore had got there in the first place. (What is it about bruises that make you prod it routinely to make sure it still hurts?)
Purple is also the colour of an old brooch that has sat in a small wooden of mine box for a very long time. I’ve never actually worn it, so it still sits in little drawer surrounded by a purple ribbon, ready and waiting for that one day.
So what does purple have to do with my carrot cake? Well clearly I’ve used purple carrots. Those carrots with the deepest darkest of colour. Carrots that stain your fingers when you peel them, and carrots that scream out to be made into a cake. Not just any cake though. I had played with my carrot cake recipe before, using the purple carrots and all I got was dark coloured flecks through out. Where was the purple? (Like in this sourdough.) I needed to somehow let the carrot cough up its colour without becoming a stodgy lump by cooking it too much. I also didn’t want to put any vegetable oil, or sugar in there. Raising your eyebrows a little? Nope, stick with me.
Local honey and sultanas for sweetness. Pecans and wholemeal spelt for flavour. Carrots for well, purple. And voila, purple carrot cake. Maybe purple is going to hold a bigger part in my life now after all.
Purple Carrot Cake
400g grated local purple carrots
100g melted butter
150g local honey
3 beaten free range eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
50g roughly chopped pesticide free pecans
50g natural sultanas
150g wholemeal spelt flour
150g s/r flour
Grate carrots and melt just the butter just a little with them either in a pot or microwave. Just enough to melt the butter- which also releases the purple colour. Mix through remainder of the ingredients, leaving the flours until last, then folding them through too.
Bake at 180C for approximately 45 minutes, in a greased and lined tin.
That time when darkness still lurks on the corners. Soft greying light gets slowly pushed out of the way for bright orange and pink streaks. The sun is yet to emerge, and my chai sits steaming before me. The rest of the household sleep on. This is my time. Quite often far too brief, but my time non the less. This is when ideas sprout, words seem clearer and inspiration is welcomed. I love this time of day. For me, it truly is the inspirational hour.
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Some wonderfully inspiring things going on at the moment that may tempt you just a little.
Crowd farmed catered event at TEDx Sydney– Saturday 4th May. Inspiring, a truly inspiring day. I’m not going to the event, (unlike this incredibly lucky lady) but do plan on going to one of the satellite events.
If you’ve ever considered eating locally before, but haven’t quite had the courage to start, this maybe the challenge to help you. Local Harvest encourages individuals, households and communities, to take on bite sized, meal sized or feast sized challenges. The annual challenge week has already passed, but you can do your own at any time. I’m really tempted by the feast sized challenge, it would be hard….anyone else want to do it with me??
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Tell me, what’s inspiring you at the moment? Person, place or thing?
So many good things are in season at the moment-summer really is the season of colourful plenty.
Delivered vegetable boxes are colourful and full of things that challenge my culinary skills, (yes, that still includes beetroot…)
My window boxes are cheery, and garden growings include an abundance of chilli this year. My teeny tiny potted garden is happy to grow chilli, and I’m happy that it’s happy to do that! The rosemary is also happy, which really does make a difference to a pan of roasting potatoes. (Also makes a well scented haven for any critters that decide to take up residence.)
Tomatoes, look I still get ambitious but they really don’t work for me in pots. Needs a whole lot more sun than I can offer them and when they finally do decide to give it a crack, some overly confident grub usually marches in at the crucial moment.
Some other seasonal goodies to look out for at this time
* plums, peaches, passionfruit
* broccoli, basil, beans
*potatoes, peas and onions
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Where ever you are, what are you enjoying this season?
cityhippyfarmgirl 