Lavender tea

The lavender plants I planted last year when I started my veggie patch have started to bloom. While I get to work thinking about what to do with all the lovely flowers I decided to make myself a lavender tea. When you don't drink tea or coffee it can be hard finding something nice and warm to drink in the winter time.


I like to make all my infused teas in this cup which I bought in a shop in Berrima over 10 years ago. You can see it's had it's fair share of chips and breaks but I can't bear to throw it out.


I love that it has it's own steeper to put your herbs into, then you pop it's little lid on to keep the volatile oils from escaping with the steam.


Then, when you're ready to drink it, you can pop the steeper onto the upside down turned lid.

Another use for newspaper

Recently, I've been thinking about ways to cut down my time in the kitchen. I have been trying to reduce the number of items I need to wash over the course of any given day. Last week I put my thinking cap on and came up with the idea of using newspaper more in the kitchen. This is what I have been doing.


I have been limiting the amount of times I reach for my chopping board and instead using newspaper as my cutting and meal prep surface.


What I like about this nifty frugal idea is that it keeps my bench top clean, all I have to do after cooking a meal is fold up the newspaper and then store in on the side of the bench until later that day when I head out into the garden and bury it.


I vary the size and thickness of the newspaper "board" depending on what type of work I am doing. If it's messy work I use several layers and open the pages out fully. If I am just making a sandwich then I just need one sheet, then I fold it up into a neat little plate size parcel, containing all the messy crumbs and use it as my plate. When finished I crumple it up and store it along side the other parcels I have waiting to be buried.

I have thought about the possibility of ingesting some of the printing ink that might be absorbed into the food I am eating, but I have decided that the impact is probably too negligible to worry about.

Storing cut fruit

You know when you cut a small piece off some fruit for your child and then wonder how to store the rest of the fruit without it going off before you get a chance to eat it? Try this idea.


Place the fruit cut side down onto the inside surface of an appropriate sized lid and then place it in the fridge. It will stay fresh for several days and the surface won't go brown as quickly. This piece of apple is 3 days old.

Sugar free nutella & peanut butter

Since I have stopped eating sugar I have been able to come up with homemade versions of some of my favourite spreads - Nutella and peanut butter!

For nutella I just whizz up some bland tasting nuts, I had macadamias on hand today so I used those, then add 3 tablespoons cacao powder, 1 tablespoon margarine, 1 tablespoon dextrose and some milk to create the right consistency.

For peanut butter I whizzed up a packet of peanuts until it became as fine as I could get it with my blender, then added 1 tablespoon olive oil, pinch of cayenne pepper and a pinch of vegetable salt. I whizzed it up again for a couple of minutes.

Neither of these versions will look as smooth, nor taste as sweet as the commercial ones, BUT that's the whole point. To me they taste divine.

Storing plastic bags

We have an overflow of plastic shopping bags at the moment. This is probably because we don't generate as much household rubbish as we used to. Stephen's preferred method of storing them is to simply shove them under the sink but I'm much too organised to let them sit there like that. I like to fold them neatly so that they take up minimal room and keep them sitting in a container.

Lay your shopping bag completely flat and expel any air from it by running your hand over it.

Fold it in half lengthwise and continue to push the air out.

Fold it in half again so that you have a long and narrow piece like this.

Fold up the bottom end so that you have a triangular shape.

Fold again along the horizontal edge.

Continue folding until you get to the top, leaving the handles untouched.

Fold down the handles.

And tuck them neatly inside the little pocket that should have formed at the front.

You will end up with a neat little package.

Store them together in a container. I counted 18 shopping bags in there.

How to store greens in the fridge

With the price of vegetables so expensive these days it's worth trying to keep whatever you buy as fresh as possible for as long as possible whilst stored in the fridge. I've tried various methods but this one that I'm about to tell you about is really effective. By using it I've managed to keep my veggies fresh for the whole month long and have had a few that suprisingly lasted a couple of months -like raddishes. It is really simple to do although it can get a bit tedious to maintain, but I think it is worth all the effort.

Method
To start
Wash and meticoulously dry your veggies - I store baby spinach, cos lettuce, spring onion, raddishes and herbs.
Wrap them separately in a piece of cotton cloth of some sort. This can be muslin or even your cotton tea towels - I use both.


Now place the whole thing in a giant zip-lock bag and close it up WITHOUT expelling any air out.

You will know if you have done it correctly because if you squeeze the bag with your hands it remains puffy like a balloon.


To maintain
Each time you use an item check how moist the cloth feels. If it feels damp then remove it and replace it with a fresh one and re-wrap the vegetable. Then, give the inside of the zip-lock bag a wipe with a tea towel to remove any condensation. Place the wrapped produce back inside and re-seal the bag.

If you are getting really annoyed at the amount of stuff you are throwing out because it is going off before you can get through it all then try this method - it really works. The lettuce in this picture is now 1 month old and still usable!!!

Getting kids to eat carrots

If you are having trouble getting your little darlings to eat their carrots try this trick.

Take a carrot, wash and peel it.

Cut it into thirds.

Cut little triangles out of the sides with a small knife.

Cut into slices.


Beautiful orange flowers for girls or orange stars for boys!! I recently tried this out on Joshua, who has just started going off his vegetables (grrr.... I thought I was in the clear), with success. Next, I am going to tackle peas and corn. On goes the mummy thinking cap :)

Glue an ice brick to a lunchbox lid

If you are sending your child off to daycare or preschool with a lunchbox and the icebrick is not finding its way back home at the end of the day try glueing one that fits to the inside of the lid!

Favourite cooking wesites

I love looking for new ideas on what to cook. Today I found Dani Spies' website and she cooks just the food I like to eat. I have been madly writing down a lot of her recipes and tips but whilst I am on the subject of food I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of my favourite chefs and/or cooking websites.

Dani Spies
www.danispies.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO2kz4qbz-I&feature=related

Denise Hazime Dede's Meditteranean Kitchen
www.dedemed.com

Chef Jeena
http://jeenaskitchen.blogspot.com/

Janella Purcell (from Good Chef Bad Chef)
www.janellapurcell.com
http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/shows/good-chef-bad-chef/recipes/

Jamie Oliver
www.jamieoliver.com

Nigella Lawson (hmm she's a bit high carb - comfort food but she still has her heart in the right place as far as I'm concerned)
www.nigellalawson.com

Then there's others that I'm undecided on as I haven't cooked any of their dishes up yet but I enjoy watching them cook their recipes such as:

Poh (from Master Chef)
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/pohskitchen/

Luke Nguyen
www.sbs.com.au/lukenguyen

SBS Food Safari
www.sbs.com.au/foodsafari

Do you have any favourites? I would love to find some more names to add to my list!

Dehydrating bananas

This is my second attempt now at dehydrating bananas. My first wasn't successful as I cut the banana pieces too small and they were so tiny once dried. I cut up 7 bananas from yesterdays shop and dunked the slices into some lemon juice first to stop browning.



With the small odd and end bits I mashed up with some powdered ginger and lemon juice then poured it into the leather making tray.




This took 10 hours to make. It was still a bit soft underneath but yummy non the less.


The banana chip took 12 hours. Josh loves these "nana bikkies".

Bulk fruit and veggie shop

Today I went to Flemington Markets again for my monthly bulk fruit and veggie shopping. I have quite a lot of things already in my freezer from my garden but there are still a few things I needed to get.



The picture only shows about half of the stash. I forgot to take pictures before beginning to distribute it into boxes to hand over to mum, my sister and sister-in-law. We got potatos, sweet potatos, tomatos, mushrooms, apples, peaches, nectarines, bananas, blueberries, coriander, mesculin. So divided up into 4 we each paid $30. It was impossible to get any oranges as they were already over double the price of last month. Last month we got a box for $15 and this month the price ranged from $28 - $40!! This is the price before the flood mercandise hits the floors and is probably due to oranges not being in season any longer.

Basil

This morning I collected all the basil growing in the veggie patch. Half of it got dried in the microwave and the remainder was processed in the mixer with a little bit of olive oil then spooned into an ice cube tray to be fozen.

Ice blocks

I managed to cook up a big batch of apple/pear cores today. I made all these yummy iceblocks from the liquid I used to steam them with.

I used some of the puree in my choc/cherry muffins and the rest I froze in my muffin tray to use in other baking recipes instead of oil and to flavour my yoghurt with.

Bottling capsicums

I have 8kg of red capsicums to get through. I kept a couple for the week to add to sandwiches and salads. Half of the remainder I just chopped and portioned out into ziplock bags and froze without blanching, apparantly you can skip this step for capsicums. The last bunch went into the oven for 1hour at 180 deg. They were covered with a damp cloth till cool, peeled and then canned in some olive oil via the water bath method. This is my first attempt at canning so I am a bit nervous about it to say the least. I canned some of the capsicums to see how they would turn out. I have a second batch to do, I think I will just bottle these in a brine solution and skip the water bath method.

Bulk carrot

Well, after everyone took their share of carrots yesterday, I was still left with a HUGE amount to deal with. I ended up making the following with them.

1. Chopped carrots (steamed for 5 min) enought to last for 11 months
2. Pureed carrots (to make carrot cake and muffins for Joshua) enough to last 7 months
3. Carrot/Orange/Ginger drinks. This is my favourite juice! As I don't have a juicer this is the next best thing. I squeezed 2 oranges into a bottle and toped up with the cooking liquid from the pureed carrots. When it comes time to drinking I will add some ginger powder. I had enough to make 5 bottles. I drank one, made 2 and still have 2 more to make - just waiting on empty bottles from Stephen as he uses these for work.

No fuss baking

I'm not the best at baking but I've found a way to ease my burden in the kitchen so that I don't have too many items to wash up afterwards. I use my kitchen scales that have a "zero out" function and I know my ingredients by weight not by cup or spoon. The first time you try this for any recipe you will still have to use cups and teaspoons or tablespoons to begin with, but you will write down the gram or kilo equivalent and re-write out your recipe (or write along side so you have a comparison).

Start by placing your mixing bowl on the scales and turning them on. This automatically cancels out the weight of the bowl. Add your first ingredient - (I added 125g of flour) then press the zero out button and the screen will show a "0" cancelling out the weight of that ingredient. Keep on doing this until you have added them all. Now if your recipe includes any additional steps (like steaming, chopping, cutting. pureeing etc) then you will still have some extra washing to do but at least you have cut it down somewhat.

I made up a batch of carrot cake muffins today and at the end of the session I had only my mixing bowl, spoon and muffin trays to clean up. I had steamed and pureed the carrots the day before so that washing up was already done.

Egg substitute

This is my favourite egg substitute that I use in most of my baking - soya flour. I use 1 tablespoon for each egg that I am replacing.