Locavore Challenge

I am hosting a Locavore Party over the Easter period. There are a couple of significant events that I want to celebrate and Easter weekend is a good opportunity to get people from far and wide together. I decided to have a theme of "Locavore" as to me that means, supporting local business, local farmers and local communities - they are all connected. Too few people realise the interconnectedness, and as that's my main philosophy, why not emphasize it. So.....I had a brain wave tonight while eating my dinner, that our main food is Local and leading up to the party I will highlight my local food choices

Tonights dinner was delicous!

Steak,chips and salad (I do apologise for the half eaten picture, but the brain wave to record it only happened half way through when I realised how good it was)

Topside steak - our own and as good as any rump I've eaten anytime! Edmund BBQ'd this(while he was cooking the chips) while I chopped and mixed up a resting marinade - garlic, chili, parsley, basil, lime juice and olive oil - OO not local :(, the rest is mine or local.
Salad - Ceylon spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, shallots, fetta, lime juice, fermented carrots - carrots not local.
Chips, not local, but organic and cooked in goat tallow from our goats.......

I then had to bottle my kombucha and decided on using some lovely local ginger to second ferment.

What do you eat regularly that's local? Please follow along with my locavore challenge and see what you can find and eat that's either home grown or local.....it'll be fun and rewarding!

Happy 2016!

I was just reading another blog (Eight Acres) where Liz was talking about having a 5 year blogging anniversary, and I thought that I must be nearly five years of blogging too. I just looked and yes, 5 years exactly (3/1/2011)! So I thought I better do a post to mark the occasion.

My first post:
The purpose of this blog is to share my food philosophy and to hopefully help people to understand better ways of farming, gardening, cooking and eating. I am confident that the leading cause of disease today is our food. We need to eat healthy nutritious food to lead healthy lives. One way to ensure that we are eating healthy food is to eat food that is produced without or with minimal chemicals. You either need to buy it or produce it yourself. I do produce a lot of our own food but I know that not everyone can. What I would like you to do though is to think about where the food you buy has come from. How was it produced? How far did it have to travel to your local shop? These are the two main questions you need to consider, however when you consider how it was produced, you need to think about so many things: organic, biodynamic, pasture fed, chemical free, hormone free, free range, and the list goes on. Hopefully through this blog you will get a better understanding of these two questions and can then make your own decisions. The food we grow on our farm at the moment includes: beef, chicken, duck, pork, vegetables, milk and eggs. We aren't self sufficient, and it would be difficult to be so as I enjoy cooking too much and need ingredients that I can't grow. I am passionate about food - from growing it, to cooking it, to eating it. I will share my adventures in these endeavours - from sharing recipes to just sharing my experiences.

I don't think a lot has changed but I do think I post more about food than farming!! Ha Ha, anyone who knows me, knows that I am fixated with food. Especially home grown!

The original driving force was to share what I know and hope that readers get something out of it and if my posts help in some way to change for the better anyones lifestyle then I'm happy. I am a passionate supporter of a local food economy and I think that this is very important if one is to eat healthier and to engage with how food is grown and delivered.

Some of you may remember reading that I was going to post every day - that didn't last long and it's now been quite a while since my last post. Our life only seems to get busier, and will for the next year or so. Hopefully our free range pig business will continue to grow enough that we can employ a full time (if not two) employee so that we can take a deep breath and slow down a bit. That is probably our Number 1 business goal for this year. My number 1 personal goal is to have a productive vege garden for the ENTIRE year.

This year is a big one for us - Kim and I have been married for 30 years, I'm turning 50 and we have owned Anabank our property for 25 years. A big celebration to prepare for this year!

Happy Days

Today was one of the days that I love having.....most of the time I was in the kitchen! Our three helpers helped me make some cheeses - Mozzarella, Halumi and I still have quark hanging in the kitchen to drain. We made home made pizza for lunch with the mozzarella - 5.5 litres of milk for enough cheese for three pizzas.

Pizza with our chorizo,and the fresh mozzarella

Three lovely helpers - Gina, Marlene and Klara

Quark - we have two German girls so wanted to show them how nice my quark is.

I made a Herman the German carrot cake, which we had with fresh cream that I got yesterday from my dairy cows. Yum. Sour dough bread is still in progress.

I have racked my pineapple wine, but will do it again tomorrow, as there is still a little bit of sediment. It's very strong! More of a spirit than a wine I think, so it might have to be drunk with soda water.

The afternoon found us outside where we killed 9 roosters. Fortunately I'd put dinner on in the oven before we went out. I didn't plan things very well, because dinner was a casserole of chicken thighs - with onion, garlic, dried mushrooms and then I topped it with some of my tomato pasta sauce than I preserved a while ago. I don't normally eat the same meat that we kill on the same day. The chicken liver pate can wait until tomorrow I think.  Usually if I don't do it straight away, it doesn't get done, but I will get it done tomorrow.....along with the peanut butter I didn't get done today. Cheese making is quite time consuming!

Chicken Dinner - I did top this with tomato sauce. Everything in it was either home grown or purchased locally. The more of a locavore I become, the harder it is to buy food from further away!

Dessert was a quick thermie icecream - fresh cream, banana and strawberries.......did I mention that it was a happy day!!!!