projects

It's like a menagerie, all the slow cooked, from scratch cooked, fermented, fermenting, soaking foods in this house.

Today I made bread which I had risen yesterday.

I strained the whey off the kefir which I am now growing indefinitely. Is 'growing' the correct term? Maybe culturing, maybe just looking after. Then I added more milk. I have a pile of things to learn about kefir, unhelped by the fact that never ever ever have I had a face to face conversation with anyone who has 'grown' kefir.

I put navy beans (which are white not blue) on to soak so that I can have a crack at making baked beans from scratch tomorrow.

I made ginger bread loaf which didn't involve any fancy waiting and soaking. It comes from the Edmonds Cookbook which is a salve for any kiwi in need of certainties in mad times of growing grains in milk and watching the world economy disintegrate. Tasted good.

I roasted a free range chicken which was on special. The level of ridiculous guilt and guilty ideas I had around this blasted chicken is so huge that some time I shall devote a special post to exactly how the greenies have taken over Catholicism's special hold on guilt. Now the chicken bones are in the slow cooker together with onions, carrots, bay leaves and parsley. And water. Making stock.

I made yoghurt. Or I put yoghurt starter in the easiyo machine. I haven't got a proper make the yoghurt from old yoghurt thing going but using the sachets is cheaper and more home made and creates less packaging waste than relying on bought, ready made yoghurt.

I bought some ingredients to make biscuits and to make ginger beer and I considered making radish and alfalfa sprouts but really enough is enough. I have two children, one husband and three chooks to care for without all this moving grooving food stuff as well.

Other useful things which I did today include planting out six celery seedlings, weeding and trimming the edges of lawn beside logs which are in turn edging and raising the garden beds. I also kept the children alive which was quite an accomplishment.