Strawberry & Cardamom Cordial

One of my (numerous) hobbies is historical reenactment. This upcomming weekend will find me, dressed in pretty Regency clothes, at the only fort in Brisbane. Two days on the edge of the cold Brisbane bay in Winter deserves some good food so I set about finding recipes from the early 19th century to make and take.

In Regency (Jane Austen) times, cordial was a term used for a sweetened liquid given to invalids. What we refer to as cordial in Australia today was called 'waters'. So the recipe I made would be called:
Strawberry & Cardamom Waters

• 2 cups water
• 2 cups castor sugar
• 2 tab lemon juice
• 2 x 250g punnets of strawberries
• 1/4 tsp cardamom seeds

Hull and halve the strawberries. (Mine were large suckers so I quartered them.)

In a saucepan stir the water, castor sugar and fresh lemon juice over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Raise the heat and simmer the liquid until it has reduced to a light syrup.


Add the strawberries and dried cardamom pods (I put mine in a tea caddy so they wouldn't be hard to remove from the strawberry pulp at the end). Simmer this for about 20 minutes.

Let cool for another 20 - 30 min.

Discard the cardamom seeds. Strain all syrup from the liquid through a fine sieve. (This may take some time!) Bottle in a sterilised bottle and voila! Delicious but very rich cordial.

Little Things

Because I've been doing so many text-heavy posts lately and because this song inspires me...

There's so many things that we miss in our everyday lives.
We're so busy hustling, bustling, chasing far-away dreams
that we forget the little things
like blue skies, green eyes and our babies growing,
like rainbows, fresh snow and the smell of Summer.
We forget to live.

Lavender growing beside my front steps

Give us eyes like children so we live each day as our last.
We're so sure we know so much that we forget to listen.
Then we want the fickle things;
Like cheap thrills, fast fuel and constant consumption,
Like TV, CDs and cars that speak our names.
We forget to live.

Passionfruit curd - delicious warmed up and served on icecream.

There's so many things that we miss in our everyday lives.
We're so busy hustling, bustling, chasing far-away dreams
That we forget the little things.
Like blue skies, green eyes and our babies growing.
Like rainbows, fresh snow and the smell of Summer.....

Winter Mulberries in my garden

We forget to live.
(lyrics by Lamb - Little Things)

Biggest Kitchen Table Audit - Electricity & Water

Water Usage
I've been pleasantly pleased at the figures on our water invoice lately but there are always more things I could do to reduce water use even further.

• Reduce the number of loads of washing done in a fortnight.
• Wash vegetables and fruit in a sink or bowl of water rather than running water.
• Consider ways to reuse cooking water that has only been used for boiling (perhaps use this for garden watering?)

Electricity Usage
Our electricity bill, on the other hand, has gone from bad to worse. Over Summer Rhys used the air conditioner in our bedroom almost non-stop. This left us with a bill of $320. Since then I'd made a huge effort to turn off lights, and to turn off appliances at the wall, including the microwave, when not in use. So when we got our next bill I was horrified to find that our electricity usage hadn't gone down... it had actually risen so we were paying $430.

We are not entirely sure what to attribute the huge jump to.

It could be Rhys' heavy use of a bar heater that he said sucks energy like a leech or the addition of 3 computers to the household (ontop of our existing 2), all running 24-7. Or it could be that I've actually started cooking rather than just occasionally using the microwave. Our stove and oven run on electricity so with the amount of cooking and baking I've been doing compared to the previous lack of any cooking at all could be a contributing factor.

Ways that I could reduce the use of electricity in our house:

• Get a second powerboard with switches to use for the game consoles and TV so they're not always on standby.
• Hurry up and finish knitting a blanket for Rhys so he won't use the bar heater.
• Find a less power-hungry alternative to the bar heater for those times when it's too cold without some kind of heating source.
• Talk to Rhys' parents about getting insulation put into the house - a good time considering the government grants available.
• Try to convince Rhys to get rid of his 2nd computer which seems to serve no good purpose (though I'm sure he'll tell me there is one!)

Biggest Kitchen Table Audit - Disposables

So much hullabaloo is made about plastic bags that it never occurred to me to look past those pesky plastic carriers to see the other disposables in my home and life that I could do without for the benefit of our environment.

A few of the blogs I've been reading of late have changed that and the next point for thought at the Biggest Kitchen Table audit has made me think on it further still.

What disposables are in my life that I want to be rid of? What can I do to replace them with a reusable substitute?

Plastic bags

• Make some more shopping totes.
• Buy a market basket.
• Say no to plastic bags when I can carry the items or put them in another bag.
• Put some shopping tote bags in the car so I don't forget them when I go out.

Paper napkins

• Don't get much use in our house anyway. Mostly just there for parties/BBQs.
• Make a set of 20 fabric napkins.

Paper Towels

• As Rhonda suggested in her entry, cut up an old towel and overlock around the outside.
• Keep the reusable rags handy for quick use.

Plastic Sandwich bags

• Lunches and cookies are now taken to work in tuppawear containers.
• Get some flat tupperwear containers for use when freezing meat.
• Store cheese wrapped in waxed paper (apparently much better for hard cheese storage anyway!) and a more permanent plastic container for parmesan and dry cheeses.

Disposable Piping Bags

• Reusable piping bags.
• Waxed paper for chocolate piping (works best anyway).

Water bottles and softdrink bottles

• I've already bought an aluminum water bottle for work (100% recyclable. Never to be used for hot water or acidic drinks. I intend to use this for cold water only so no danger of leeched chemicals.)
• Buy a stainless steel water bottle for home and another small one for out-and-about.
• Encourage Rhys to drink more green tea and less softdrink. Stop buying soda water.
• Use any large softdrink bottles for useful purposes (e.g. as mini greenhouses for seedlings).
  

Washing up Chux

• I've already stopped buying disposable chux and replaced them with textured cotton dishcloths (Woolworths have a home-brand of these). I need to buy a few more so that I have a large supply to ensure they get cycled and washed very regularly.

Ladies Sanitary Pads
Apologies to my male readers who may not want to hear about it... feel free to skip this point!

• I've been investigating the possibility of using a menstrual cup rather than the usual disposable products. There are a number of makers on the market so I'm doing some look-around to determine who supplies to Australia and what reviews they've got (usually they get rave reviews on the pregnancy/mothering forums!).
  

Tissues

• I need to buy some handkerchiefs
  

Soap, liquid soap, washing powder packaging

• I've already been buying hand-made shea soap from our local markets and slowly Rhys has become used to it rather than his favourite individually wrapped Pears brand translucent soap.
• Also I've been buying bulk refill packs of liquid soap and washing powder. Buying in bulk means less packaging is required. (I don't buy individually wrapped items except when it can't be helped.)
  
• I want to learn to make my own soap both for the shower and to replace the liquid soap. I may get some resistance from Rhys regarding the liquid soap.
  

Packaging in general

• I have been sticking (as best I can) to the goal of making most of my food from scratch at home. Though this doesn't entirely eliminate packaging from my household waste (I still have to buy flour, dried pasta and other ingredients for cooking) it makes a difference. No more biscuit packaging. No more packet meals or noodle box packaging.
  
• I intend to always buy food in bulk where possible.
  

Newspapers

• We don't buy newspapers but the free local papers get delivered regularly and I'm guilty of occasionally reading the farce of journalism known as MX. Rather than disposing of these I need to store them for use in gardening, composting, worm farming and cleaning mirrors.
  

Those I'm not willing to ditch yet:

• Toilet Paper.
• Cling wrap (too many uses in baking, especially dough.)

Reducing Food Waste

• I already have a worm farm to help turn kitchen scraps into fertiliser.
  
• I need to build a 3 box composting system.
  
• I need to get my chickens to help eat the excess food scraps from worm farming.
• I need to work toward improving my use of food so there aren't so many scraps. (i.e. ensure food is stored properly so it doesn't go off and therefore binned.)

Biggest Kitchen Table Audit - Food

The next topic of discussion at The Biggest Kitchen Table was food.


What have I done so far to improve the quality of food in my diet, to make my food socially responsible (ethical, environmentally sustainable etc), to lower the costs and to remove unnecessary preservatives and chemicals from my meals?

• Make meals from scratch.
• Buy basic ingredients (no packet mixes).
• No longer buy packaged baked goods but rather make them.
• Eat home made bread and make homemade pizza bases.
• Drink water, tea and home made cordials - no more softdrinks or nesquick.
• Buy food in bulk where possible (makes it cheaper and less packaging to dispose of).
• Buy all vegetables at a local fruit and veg market.
• Shop for dried groceries with Australian owned and made as preferences.
• Almost never buy take-out.
• Take lunch to work (leftovers from dinners and baked treats for morning and afternoon tea).
• Buy meat only once a month or less (meat is an essential part of our diets but not to the extent that most people eat it and there is a huge amount of grain used in farming meat).
• Consider the best way to use an ingredient to get the most out of it - for example, if I have a steak of beef I will not cook it as a steak with vegetables and gravy - because that will feed me for one meal. Instead I will dice it up and use it in a stir fry which will last me 4 - 5 meals.
• Use up leftovers rather than letting them go to waste and freeze meals to save them.
• Have a worm farm to help dispose of food scraps in a way that is beneficial to my (future) garden and keeps food from rotting and creating methane in landfills.
• Harvested and used macadamias from our tree and basil from the pot in my cooking and baking.

I'm only human so occasionally I stumble and buy a KFC snack box or buy more vegetables than I can use before they go off... but I'm getting better all the time.

What I'd like to change or put in place:

1) Get chickens, big, fat, plump egg makers (who will also help with disposal of kitchen scraps and produce excellent nitrogen boosting poop for my compost and garden).
2) Build a 3 box compost system.
3) Begin a small vegetable garden (using heritage seeds and organic gardening methods, with a smattering of permaculture concepts thrown in)
4) Plant some fruit trees - especially some awesome, unusual and exotic ones like chocolate pudding fruit.
5) Learn how to make yoghurt, cottage cheese and then hard cheeses.
6) Learn the best way to store food items so they last the longest.
7) Get a pasta roller and make my own fresh pasta and gnocchi.

That all feels a bit overwhelming so I'm going to stop there before it feels unachievable.

Down To Earth - Biggest Kitchen Table Audit

Rhonda Jean, the author of the Down To Earth blog, has made a call-out to her readers to join her in another Biggest Kitchen Table, this time an audit, or stocktake, of our lives and goals on our path to simplicity.

The first topic for consideration was money and finances.

My control over my finances has made me so proud of myself. It might sound a silly thing to be proud of to those who have had their spending neat and sorted. For me, it was a big effort to stop spending as frivolously, wildly and with cheery abandon as I had been. I was a habitual consumer for immediate satisfaction and not looking to the bigger goals in my life I would need money for.

The way I took control was to create a budget and then set up my bank accounts.

Creating the Budget
I created my budget on an excel spreadsheet which looked like the equation below.

Fortnightly Income

minus expenses
I ensured that I listed all expenses calculated down to the fortnight figure even the annual ones like registration.

minus big savings
I then decided on a figure that I wanted to save from each pay and deducted it from the running total figure. This savings would be first and foremost a 'safety buffer', but also for our wedding and then later for a home deposit.

minus repayments
Previously we had bought a TV which we got on one of those 'pay nothing for 12 months' arrangements. I took the figure of how much I had to pay before the 12 months deadline and then divided that by the number of months remaining.

An interesting note: When we had to use my savings as a safety buffer, like when the car broke down and cost us $1000 to fix, we treated this as if it were a loan from my savings. I included a payback savings figure in the repayments section and included payments to replenish my savings.

minus small savings
The small savings showed an amount I wanted to put aside each pay towards some short term saving goal that would cost more than my allowance but less than our wedding.

minus food budget
Originally I budgeted for $200 of food a fortnight based on my previous grocery shopping experience. This has since been tightened up a great deal and my allowance relaxed a little.

remainder is allowance and small incidentals
Originally I set a fortnightly allowance of $100 which included any activity or purchase I wanted that wasn't groceries or incidentals like medication. I still aim to spend only $100 but since my food budget has tightened I've relaxed my allowance a little. When I get my kitten I expect my expenses will change and I'll have to reconsider my allowance figure.

So my forntightly income was broken down to the last $5 of how it was to be portioned out between my needs and wants... but it was all still just pixels on the screen. How was I going to put it in practice? How was I going to ensure that all those expenses, repayments, savings were going to the right place?


Electronic Envelopes
A popular way of sticking to a budget is to have different envelopes/jars/pouches labelled with one of the expenses of the budget. Money is portioned out to the envelopes and used when the bill/expense is due.

I've implemented a similar method but rather than using physical envelopes and dollars I've opted for an electronic envelope system.

My bank allows for a number of 'sub accounts' to be connected to a main account connected to two cards, an eftpos/ATM card and a debit card. I've created a sub account for small savings, another for bills, another for repayments and another for savings. When my pay comes into my main account I use online banking to shuffle money into the various accounts according to my budget.

The money that remains in my pay account is my spending allowance, incidentals and food budget.

Where possible I make payments on my eftpos card or the debit card used as a credit card. This way I can see where my money has been spent and track my spending habits. Cash has a tendency to disappear from my wallet without a trace.

Changes I want to make in the area of finances
We are currently so under-insured that it is not funny. We need to get health insurance and home contents insurance. This is going to require a reshuffling and tightening of the budget.

I currently owe my big savings account $300 for the latest repairs to our car. I want to pay this back as soon as possible.

I want to add into my budget a HECS (university government loan) repayment figure so at the end of each financial year I can make a bulk payment off my account and get the benefits of a discount on the amount owed and reduce the total amount when it comes time to be reindexed. (If you pay a lump sum of $500 or more, the government will reduce your debt by 10% of your payment).

Now that I have my half of the TV loan paid off, my next small savings project will be to buy a chook-pen and some laying hens.

Two kittens coming into our house soon will change my expenses slightly so I will have to rejig my budget for that.

I want to create a joint high-yield savings account with Rhys for our home deposit.

Review - Lush Oxeo Cube Deoderant

For a while now I have been wanting to rid myself of deoderants with unnecessary nasties like aluminum compounds, parabens and talcs so I was rather pleased when I saw that Lush have a range of deoderants without any of these ingredients.

Lush are a company with a conscience. They won't buy any ingredients from companies that test on animals. Nearly all of their packaging is in paper, which they encourage you to throw on your compost heap once used. They use fresh and natural ingredients and avoid putting preservatives or possibly harmful chemicals in any of their handmade products. You can see more about their company ethics on their website: www.lush.com.au



I chose the Lush Oxeo Cube because of it's size, smell and texture. Lush carry a range of natural deoderants, some a hard, soap-like bar, others powder based. All of them smell WOW but the Oxeo Cube had a luxurious floral smell that I appreciated more than its sister product, the tea-tree cube.

The cube is a palm-sized lump of powder pressed into shape, held together by a yellow-wax back. The instructions say to rub into the armpits, preferably after just showering. At $10.50 I was willing to give it a try so I could get rid of my current roll-on deoderant.

First use:
I used the bar as suggested, directly after showering. I got a slight stinging/burning sensation in the area the bar had been used for about 10 seconds but I am not sure if this is linked to the fact I had just shaved my armpits before getting out of the shower. The smell was lovely and lasted all day, despite a great deal of hurrying and stress. It is currently Winter and so there is obviously less sweating happening than in the Summer months. I'll be interested to see if the bar performs as well when its hotter.

I'm going to give this a week of use to see if the stinging/burning is linked to shaved 'pits' or is a reaction my body is having to one of the ingredients.

Watch this space...

Watch this space for SEMOLINA MADNESS!