Rohan Anderson's Blog, page 14

transition

My garden looks a little bare right now, it’s the unmistakable time of transition. Out with the cool season vegetables and in with summer veg. I’ve been harvesting a good deal from the patch, and much of either now resides in our bellies or is hanging on the old wire clothes line, strung up in bunches to dry and will keep us in store of garlic, shallot and onion for the next little while/until it runs out.

I’ve had some real success with sweet green peas in abundance and we’ve fed on plenty of crunchy fresh broccoli. These cool season veg and many other varieties, have given us a good run these last few months, but it hasn’t all been rosy. Some veg was a real failure, for some reason they’ve just dogged it in this yard. Onions where slow to grow and rarely did I get a large sized specimen. The parsnips came out both poor in size and disfigured in shape, but saying that they didn’t go to waste. I roasted them and made a spread with cream cheese and chilli. Wow! I must admit, I like turning apparent failures into edible success and that roasted parsnip dip was a winner.

I’ve been extra vigilant in regards to seed collection this year. The process is a steep learning curve for me as I’ve only really collected tomato, garlic, beans and pumpkin seeds in the past. I’m now making more of a concerted effort to be independent in regards to my seed supply, as I may not always be able to buy seeds. I guess I’m preparing myself to be more independent, and thus forcing me to give this seed collecting a real red hot go. I’ll continue to learn techniques and I’ll share seeds with anyone else on a similar path. So far I’ve collected rocket, broccoli, kale, onion, spinach and a bunch of peas that I left on the vine. For most seed collection I’ve simply allowed the basics of biology to occur, the plant is first allowed to flower, the insects pollinate the flower, then seed pods develop which are harvested and allowed to dry by either hanging of cutting off and storing in glass jars unsealed. I hope this method works, as not all of my vegetables are necessarily heirloom and I don’t know if the seeds will be viable. I’m not banking on all of them working, but this is my learning approach, I learn by by doing, sometimes making mistakes, sometimes succeeding, but all I’m really doing is simply taking a chance and seeing what happens.

The hardest plant to collect seeds from was the pea’s. I really had to restrain myself from picking one last meal from these sweet green beauties, instead I had to allow the pods to go past their edible stage and into their seed curing stage. In the end I’ve ended up with what appears like a tribal necklace of pea’s! I’ve used the same drying technique I use for drying wild mushrooms.

I used needle and thread (well fishing line more precisely), thread each pea and then I hang the seed in a dry cool place in the old school house. The pods will eventually become dry and quite crisp, which will signify that the pea’s inside are dried completely and then can be removed and stored in a jar in a few months time. Fingers crossed we get a good crop of peas like we did this spring.

Many a delicious pea meal has been enjoyed this spring. This being the last fresh pea meal, a salad with new season spuds (Dutch Cream), pea, home smoked bacon, mint and goats cheese. Simply beautiful.

There is very much a reminder of ones mortality when seed collecting. Well maybe not for everyone but in my munted mind. The principle purpose of life as a living organism is to pass our genetic information down to the next generation in the hope that what we are as an animal, our traits, our physical build up, our very being somehow remains on earth in some way, shape or form. This is all the vegetables are doing by their flowering and seeding process. It’s very much a case of not managing the vegetables but merely facilitating their genetic longevity. And at the end of one hell of a hectic year, I’m glad to be once again taking part in something so very real and in my mind, worthwhile.

escape to wild

It was just what we needed. An adventure down to Tasmania to finish off one hell of a year. Thanks to the hard work of our Tassie friend Michelle we made our way south for a cooking and rabbit-stripping demonstration she organised for me at Mona, the art jewel of Hobart.

Road tripping sights.

I love the beauty of mixing a bit of work with pleasure. We left the mainland after the Hobart demo was done and road tripped to Bruny Island via the beautiful Huon Valley.

Bruny Island, even though it’s dotted with plenty of established farms and houses, has managed to retain a certain wildness and rawness which I was immediately drawn to. My wild man instincts went a bit crazy, in fact I wasn’t the only one affected by this embracing of wildness. Henry boy had what we called a case of Lagoon Fever where he ran wild like he’d been stung by a swarm of bees. We were at a place called Big Lagoon (aptly named because it is both a lagoon and large in size), and that dog ran and ran, seemingly covering kilometres in seconds. He slept like an angel that night (but snored like a drunken lord).

Big Lagoon, where the wind was so powerful, all proper fly fishing casting techniques go out the window.

We spent most of the time fishing and foraging for the most beautiful food. Oysters were mind-blowing, straight off the rocks and down the gullet. The mussels were some of the finest, cooked in garlic and wine, simple stuff but wowsers!

The days spent in the little boat were the best. Kate’s papa Warwick (aka Wazza, Wayne, Gary, Grampa James Brown, Darren, Ramish) was kind enough to let us take the boat for a few days in Adventure Bay.

Late each afternoon he’d drive on the beach to pick us up and we’d then head over the rolling hills of Adventure Bay up the steep drive to his humble island retreat where we’d fillet the fish and cook them all kinds of ways.

Here is a man who has worked like a dog all his working career, and now he lives a life with almost nothing, but in fact he appears to have everything he ever wanted. It’s obvious to me that he made the choice to simplify life, and he’s actually been successful. If you ever meet the bloke you’d understand why, it suits his “I can do what ever I want” approach to life. He’s a pig in poo down there, what a breezy life he lives.

Warwick’s clever outdoor kitchen table he crafted with salvage timber complete with sunken herb garden. He could sell these tables. But he probably couldn’t be stuffed. I don’t blame him.

How rad are the little raised beds made from salvaged stuff?!

He’s (Warwick) inadvertently put me back on track, in regards to simplifying things. This year has been both cursed and blessed. It’s almost at the end, and I’m feeling like positive changes are afoot. For now, I’m just having a few days of doing very little and dreaming of being back on wild Bruny Island eating oysters off the rocks.

Thanks Kate for letting me steal most of your images, and sorry I was in holiday mode and reluctant to get the camera out.

i eat my vegetarian enemies for dinner

It’s that point in time on the veg gardening calendar when we need to pull certain plants out that are ending their season and plant the new varieties that are suited to the warm season. Out with the garlic, onion, spinach and shallots and in with beans, beans and more beans. It’s ‘bean’ my aim to capitalise on summer’s warmth to grow as many beans as possible, not to eat in summer though, why bother when there are ripe tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini in season? I grow the beans in summer, let them dry out in their pods and harvest them in autumn and store them in large jars for my weekly bean cook up. It’s the old approach of harnessing the life of summer and utilising that energy to get you through the lean times of winter.

At the end of a massive day in the veg garden, I looked at the first round harvest of garlic and onion, it hung in bunches dishevelled bunches on the old clothes line, swaying in the breeze, with the hollow tapping sound of onion stalk hitting onion stalk and I thought to myself, tonight I should cook something to celebrate this little harvest. I’ve been purging some snails (Que: vegetarian enemy) for a rabbit and snail paella that I like to cook, but I decided to celebrate what the garden had on offer. A little bit of my new home cured bacon would make a nice addition, along with some parsley and white wine. The snails were washed, rinsed and farewell’d with the obligatory comments from the kids…”ooohhh yuck…you’re not going to eat snails again dad!”

The little snails boiled for about half an hour, then were transferred to simmer another half hour in the white-wine-garlic broth-sauce-thing. A little increase of heat, some cornflour, a knob of butter and grate of peccorino and the job seemed done.

Not many people eat these. In fact I know I’m in the minority. But I have convinced some people to try it, even my eldest daughter did, at one time, eat a snail. But tonight she declined the offer. I had no problems with that.

survival

The last few weeks have been pretty rough. Emotionally it’s been rather challenging. I’ve let outside distractions dictate my headspace. No matter how much I try to not allow certain things to happen, there are so many things out of my control. How I deal with these situations varies, and the last few weeks I reckon I could have done a better job. I’m constantly reminded that I’m at times a weaker man than I’d like to be. Not weak as in the tough, manly stereotype but as in being a better thinker, a better do-er. I’m not sure if those past few lines make much sense to you, but they sure do to me.

As I tossed and turned last night, listening to the strong summer winds rattle the old roof, I thought long and hard about the recent events. I’ve let things get to me, and it’s not the kind of situation that I work so hard for. I want simplicity, I want to prove to myself that there is a perfectly suited way to live my life, it may not be applicable to everyone but it’s what I strive for.

I want to continue to be active in ensuring the three important things to survive are sorted out. Food. Water. Shelter.

That’s the triple threat to our survival. It’s a hard life without all three, and in this past week this threesome of survival elements has been challenged.

Some things I can’t control, but I can sort out two elements with a little hard work, and it continues to be my goal to take more responsibility for our food. In fact I’ve worked very hard these last few months preparing for the warm season crop and it’s finally here. And it’s meals like this one that represent to me the very essence of my goal – food that’s been prepared by me, made from ingredients that I’m proud to say are from my semi-self sufficient life choice. Our eggs, onion, chives, spinach. I even made the bread (sorry I can’t make my own flour). I dressed it with goats cheese which is Meredith’s…local for me.

It’s something that can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It’s something anyone can do in their backyard. It’s a meal that represents to me what is achievable. Sure it’s basic, but it covers one of the elements of our survival triple threat. And if we get bare bones, that’s what we’re all doing. Just trying to survive.

taste that pea-ness

Wow Spring has come and gone, and as a result we’ve cropped bags of peas and beans. In early spring we were super excited about the future crop of peas, we were a bit naughty and often nibbled on the young shoots on the pea bushes. They taste very much like peas in fact I like to hand some fresh leaves to a newbie, and ask them if they can taste the pea-ness flavour. Sometimes they agree that the pea-ness flavour is a winner. Sometime they slap me in the face for using foul language.

We’ve cropped most of the season’s crop, the rest we podded and froze and bagged in 1 cup portions. The broad beans (farva) we’ve eat like crazy this time of year. A lot of Aussies don’t know the best way to eat this little spring gem. I don’t care really, as I’m often gifted with unwanted beans!!!!

It’s officially summer. But hell, you wouldn’t know it. It’s currently 8.1 degrees and raining. I was going to walk the river with the fly rod this morning but I might leave it for another time.

wasteland to wildflowers

Last week I did something a little strange. I dropped the Jeep off in town and walked home. It’s strange because it’s a 4 hour walk home and the mechanic has a free car service. But I needed a walk. A good walk always allows me to think, it’s time to talk to myself and to figure things out. This walk took me through a mixed landscape, starting in the industrial zone, through the suburbs and finally into the bush. I took my camera, I slung it around my neck, and every now and then I’d click the shutter as my camera hung at chest height. I didn’t look through the viewfinder, I let the camera do the work.

What I ended up with is a photographic metaphor of my life. More precisely the journey of my life these past few years. I left the ugly, the industrial complex, I left the suburban culture, and made my way through semi-rural life and ended up back in the country where I was most happiest as a child.

The walk was pretty arduous I have to admit. It was hot, I had a pack with plenty of water and some tucker. The bush tracks were often steep and rocky. As I walked out of Ballarat I consumed the ugliness of our current lifestyle – factories making ‘stuff’ in a bland soulless suburban environment and extravagant use of natural resources (i.e. golf courses).

Then as I gradually entered the bush on the fringe of this rural city, I was confronted with the expected – the visual and environmental eyesore of dumped rubbish, which in my mind shows the general level of respect many of my fellow citizens have for the natural world. It seems that some people have the ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind’ approach. I just can’t understand what goes through ones mind when they dump rubbish in the forest.

All the usual suspects were there, they always are.

It’s such a pity that it’s so hard to go anywhere in Victoria without seeing junk that some person has left behind, no doubt with intent. It demonstrates to me the attitudes of the people. Sure there are people who care, but when I see this being so commonplace my heart sinks for the future of humanity. This display of human behaviour shows to me a clear lack of respect for nature, and no doubt an overall view of our greater natural environment. Why would that person care about reducing their carbon footprint, buying less stuff, living with less? These attitudes of disrespect and laziness run strong through a person’s general approach to life.

When I got deeper into the bush I saw the most beautiful patches of wildflowers, the chocolate lilies, milk maids and all the other wild orchids and flowers were such a beautiful sight. They come out and beautify the bush every spring. With such beauty how could one treat the bush with no respect?

When I sifted through the images, I was saddened by some pictures, their honesty and what they represented to me. In the end I was happy to find the little track in a paddock of long grass that led me home. It’s such a simple, non-descript country track, but it represents so much to me. It’s a harbinger of hope.

yes…it’s a good life

Last night I woke to a fierce spring thunderstorm. Wow she was a beauty! She really made the old school house shake. We got a good drenching of hard rain too, so hard that the noise on the tin roof woke up most of the house’s occupants. Just in time for nature’s lightning bolt show, which was one of the most spectacular I’ve seen in a while. I stayed in bed, watching one splash of light after another, the light dancing for split seconds on the bedroom wall, and though spectacular as the display was, my eyes remained sluggishly open, it had been a rough day. I had no chance of avoiding slumber and it eventually lured me like trout to a fly and I eventually embraced a well deserved sleep. I may have dreamed that my veg garden got destroyed in the storm, but when I checked in the morning all appeared in order.

The spring weather gets things really going in the food garden, well all plant life. The lawns around the school house, (a.k.a. resource hungry visual fancy) is becoming a real hassle to maintain, so much so that we’re investigating the option of getting goats to keep the grass down and as a bi-product to provide us with dairy. Kate’s doing a great deal of research into goats, it’s her pet project…pardon the pun.

Keeping goats? Raising a food garden? Slow living! It’s such a stark contrast to being stuck in traffic for an hour each way to work, sitting under fluorescent lighting in a small cubicle’s working for a large corporations, and being loaded to the hilt with finance and debt…all seems so distant now. WHAT WAS I THINKING? MADNESS! Thankfully it’s rather normal for me to bounce out the back door, dive into the patch, cut off some broccoli or what ever else is in season and cook it!

I rolled out some fresh pappardelle with some eggs and farina flour and it ended up dressed with wild nettle pesto and broccoli picked minutes before. Such great food, I love veg!

For the life of me I can’t figure out why I didn’t do this years ago? Well I guess I started working towards this dream years ago, and I almost had it at the old cottage, but now it seems to be really paying dividends. My girls are happier and I’m happier that I can provide a different life for them, a life that I believe has more positives than what’s considered normal for a kid in 2012.

We’re pretty happy being semi self-sufficient, it’s a pretty cheap way to live, this simple life. The remarkable thing is we’ve ended up being much richer for it, in fact we reckon our lives are enriched! We still buy the staples, but we tend now to buy them in bulk, like 40kgs of flour at a time. Kate has found some great places in town where we buy direct from the wholesaler and in larger quantity, and this means less trips to the staples store, thus lower fuel costs, less emissions yadda yadda. I know I ‘love to lecture’ on this subject, and yes it’s my life’s obsession to rabbit on about the environment, but fuck we only have one planet! It’s time for us to turn away from our consumerist planet degrading system, and return to older ways that respect nature. We are true custodians of this land, but we’ve been doing a pretty lame job for a long time, and now we’re running out of resources and heating up the planet one way or another.

I’m glad I’m able to communicate my lifestyle using my little laptop and using the internet, technology has its place, very much so, but there are things I know that our family can do to reduce our impact on nature. One day I’ll be charging my laptop from a mix of solar and wind energy, but for now I really do hope we’re making a difference by producing most of our food. Even if in reality we’re just kidding ourselves, I don’t mind one bit. This way of living is the best I’ve experienced so far. That in itself makes some sense for us to continue doing what we do.

ends of the scale

It’s not ‘rocket surgery’ to see that our current food production system exists only because of ‘cheap’ oil prices. You may pay only a few bucks for a kilo of veg, but the real price is carbon emissions and reliance on a finite resource. This system cannot last for ever. Our current broad acre farming practices rely on fossil fuels, but like a bottle of soft drink, when you get to the bottom of the bottle it’s all over. What happens then?

I often get asked the question…”but what can I do?” I’m not an expert, but I always suggest to start by growing your own vegetables. Learn some techniques of veg growing by doing. Like me you probably won’t have the capabilities to grow all of your veg all year round but trust me you can grow a great chunk of it! I know I’m at the extreme end of the scale in regards to producing my own food, so much so that I’m often referred to as a ‘food warrior’ a term a close friend coined and has now been picked up in the media. I guess I am fighting not only to be independent from supermarket food but I’m also fighting against the very system. We need change, we have to prioritise with environment first, then people, then money, not the other way around. And on a small scale we can think of our own small environment, our garden. It’s dead easy, really. Seeds go in the soil, and the plant gets watered and fed. If you’re unsure of the technical details read the instructions on the back of the seed packet. It’s really that simple!

 

And my garden is proof of that simplicity. I’m not really keen on opening up my house on weekends for thousands of people to come through and see for themselves, so I take pictures and share on a blog. But it’s there, a garden that feeds us so much food. The simplest of veg like the humble spinach can feed you for so long! Many months of fresh green and red spinach. It’s getting cooked for breakfast lunch and dinner (not all on the same day)! I cook it with a few eggs, an onion, and a little bit of meat, like chorizo, bacon or pancetta. And this is where I fit in on the extreme scale of DIY food production. I’m making my own pancetta. Kate got payed in pig recently for a job that she did for a pig farmer. Score. So we’ve now got a pig in the freezer and with what I’m assuming to be pork belly, I’m curing pancetta.

So far it’s turned out saltier that I’d like, but that’s the reality of being on my L plates in regards to meat curing, and it’s ok to use in my cooking because I normally use a tiny bit of meat just to give a little flavour and texture, it’s rarely the main part of a meal. I will get pancetta making to my liking eventually, I just need to persevere, just like I have with the vegetable garden. And look what a bounty it’s providing us with!

direct from me

I finally got around to setting up a place for you to purchase my book direct from my family room to yours!

If you have an Australian postal address you can now buy the WholeLarderLove book directly from me HERE. Today I wrapped up my first batch, and I felt a little proud as I wrapped each book. I’m still very much a backyard operation. I love it! Just in case you get excited about my packing skills, don’t. I’m one of those male’s, you know the ones…..we lack the skills to make things look pretty. I have done my best. I used hipsters paper and hipster string. But the practical twitch embedded in me made me thick wrap each precious book in bubble wrap. I’d hate for a book to arrive all battered and crappy just because I wanted it to look good wrapped!

Each week now I’ll wrap up a bunch of books and send them to you. I really hope you all enjoy it and cook plenty of hearty meals from food you’ve grown or acquired the old way.

Ro

PS. Sorry for anyone outside of Australia, I can’t ship to you,  but you can buy the book here.

The rocket and holy goat

I got my hands on some delicious goats’ ricotta, well actually I think it’s called a Fromage Frais to be more technical. I’m no cheese expert, and I used it as I would a ricotta and I made gnocchi for lunch. The cheese is made by Holy Goat, not like a religious goat from the heavens, it’s just the brand of the cheese. Confused? Let’s just say it’s goats ricotta and it’s delicious. I remember watching a documentary on the two cheese-making ladies behind ‘Holy Goat’ as they struggled through a harsh drought for a few years. Poor buggers. I assume they pulled through ok because their cheese is available here and there. I got mine from a food swap, veg for cheese. Nice score too I think. One day we’d love to get some goats and make our own cheese…I just have to convince the landlord or rent a paddock off the next door neighbours, then of course I have to con someone teach us how to make cheese!

In any case, here is the run down on how to make a rocket pesto with gnocchi.

Step one: Plant rocket in your garden.

Step two: Employ the services of children to help harvest rocket

Step three: Mix egg, flour, manchego cheese and ricotta in bowl. Form dough

Step four: Make balls then roll out into long sausages, then cut into dumplings and score with fork

Step five: Process a bunch of rocket, manchego cheese, pine nuts and olive oil to make a pesto. Boil the gnocchi until it floats to the top then mix into pesto. Serve. Enjoy.

*Disclaimer. If you fail to complete step one, the meal usually falls apart in a heap.