Fruit and loaves

This week has been a lean one... Somehow we spent most of this weeks food money last week!
My work hours have been reduced to just 4 days per week which one would expect to impact on ones take home folding money but actually my income won't be reduced until next pay day! The 'lean times' haven't actually hit yet but why postpone the inevitable? Right? LOL

So anyway we ran out of food money and have had to become slightly more resourceful than usual, (Err I am referring to the usual as it applied to the time prior to my reduced hours at work, which from this week is no longer the norm. Not the usual as we will soon have to become used to which may include hanging around the back of Supermarkets waiting for them to chuck out the old cabbage leaves.... Just kidding mum!)


(A chickpea curry with the perfectly cooked chapatis and rice is so nice!)

So where was I? Oh yes food! We kind of ran out of money but we still had a bunch of stuff in the cupboard. Necessity has inspired creativity on the home front and Sam has been busy! In the cupboard we had a kilo or two of plain flour, some Atta flour, rice, a bag of dried chick peas, a large onion, herbs spices, a tin of tomatoes, and a few other little scrappy things, there was a carton of milk and some butter in the fridge and some yeast in the freezer.


(Let them eat Scones)
Over the weekend Sam has made a bunch of really nice food. Starting with white bread on Friday, It was so delicious we ate it before I could get a photo. There were some green and yellow specks in it due to the fact that the flours was only meant to be used for playdough!

Last night she made enough chickpea curry with rice and chapatis to serve another two meals at least! (You make chapatis with Atta flour) We ate the curry tonight and it was superb. For desert we had scones with Jam... oh yeh there was jam in the fridge. The scones turned out perfectly! There's even enough flour left for another loaf of bread.

Now from just a handful of ingredients we've managed to create some delicious food that we probably wouldn't have bothered with otherwise. Now to top it all off the neighbor called out to me from across the fence this afternoon and gave me a bag full of bananas! Apparently their tree has fallen down under the weight of all the bananas it's carrying! Some how inexplicably the week has turned from a time of trial and hardship into a food bonanza!



(Bananas fall like manna)

We're living off the cream! Now it's moments like these that I've just gotta give thanks! Shalom.

Gardening (for food) in the town

(Bundoora Park Community Garden, Bundoora, Victoria)

It's been great to see a revival and growth in Urban food production, which is apparrently becoming hugely popular in Australia, UK and the USA. To grow your own food is now considdered to be cool... (Common practice in most other places)
A couple of years ago I discovered the Life Island website after viewing an amazing video about the Manor Gardens in Hackney, UK. At the time they were fighting to protect their 100 year old garden allotments from being leveled to make way for a sporting complex for the Olympic games... Sadly they lost the battle and the whole site has since been completely cleared! But! I will be very difficult to rebuild the sense of community that appeared to have existed in that special place and I was really saddened when I learned about the garden's demise.

Somewhere in my trawling of the internet I discovered that there was a cookbook produced with photos of the people and their special places in the Manor Garden. The Book is called Moro East.
I managed to order a copy of it online and it was delivered toward the end of last year. It's a wonderful book full of very rustic recipies and images, the cover features some beautiful Islamic art.

(Moro East Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark)

It may be idealism or escapism but this stuff really inspires me. The book is wonderful and I like just flicking through the pages.


Sliver Gardening

Back at home our little garden is providing shade and green where once there was only the blinding glare and heat of too much concrete ... We've eaten a delicious pumpkin, snake beans, heaps of basil and enjoyed Lemongrass tea. We only harvest food occasionally but the aesthetic value of a food garden makes enormous improvements to our peace of mind regardless of limmited crops.

Rosella Jam (again)

(The first Batch)

I'm quickly typing this while some more Rosellas bubble away on the stove! This is my third and final Batch. Enough's enough!
I'm talking about Rosella jam and if you've never tasted it man you're missing something special! The plant Rosellas come from grows in the tropics so it's quite likely if you live in a temporate climate you've never heard of this jam.


(Rosella calixes. Jam aficionado behind, Ubud Botanic Gardens)

While in Bali we visited the botanic gardens in Ubud. I noticed there were some familiar Hibiscus bushes scattered through the garden. They were Hibiscus Sabdariffa (Rosella bushes). Back at reception on our way out I stopped to talk to the lady at the counter who had a basket full of very large Rosella calixes. On the counter were bags of Rosella tea and when she opened the door to the fridge it was full of jam jars.


(Jam)


(Tea)

Inevitably we got talking about rosella jam and I came away with a jar of some very delicious jam made right there at the Ubud botanic gardens. Great products!


(Complete fruits)

A couple of weeks after getting back to Darwin I headed out to a spot where I can usually find Rosellas at this time of year (Between the end of April and early June). There were heaps there but picking Rosellas takes a fair bit of time so I only took one shopping bag full. This was enough for me to cook up 6 jars of jam, twice the number I made last year!


(First Batch of jam)

The jam turned out fantastically! I don't like to cook it too long and use as little sugar as possible. Fortunately I had enough pectin for it to set just right.

After this great success I went back out there and picked another bag full which I soon converted into another 5 jars worth. This time I used less sugar and cooked for only 10-15 minutes. The result was thinner and much more tart but great on toast!

This is the most I've ever made and I've been distributing the jam to friends all over the place. Finally I went back out one more time and collected another bag full which converted down to 1kg of calixes. They are bubbling away on the stove right now and I can smell them cooking. I thought I'd blog about them while they cook as a means of distracting myself so I don't interupt the process before time. I just want to give them a bit more time than the last batch.

I expect after having cooked this batch I would have created about 4 litres of jam! That's so cool.
If you've never tasted it you've gotta try it. I suppose the closest flavour that matches it might be rhubarb. It has the same tartyness and is red but doesn't quite match the special flavour.

Get some if you can. It's awesome!