Lots and lots of cabbage

On Wellington Anniversary Day I entered my first ever A and P show with some homegrown produce. And wouldn't you know it I got first place! (Please note that even though the competition level wasn't as high as one might have expected my cabbage was still the bomb regardless).

Mega cabbage

But alas what to do with all the cabbage afterwards. After 3 meals of coleslaw there was still  ¾ of a cabbage left. My only other experience of having this much cabbage was in Form 1 when we learnt to make coleslaw in cooking class. The teacher (Mrs Watson) gathered all the leftover cabbage and made sauerkraut with it. Then for the rest of the term we used sauerkraut in other recipes. In particular I remember putting sauerkraut on pizza.

Mrs Watson had some interesting ideas about cooking (she pretty much put lemon pepper on everything) but I like that she didn't want to waste the cabbage and came up with another way to use it. Kiwi ingenuity for you (with a german twist)!

So anyway I don't have a copy of her version of sauerkraut and all the recipes I read involve quite a process of fermentation. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to such lengths considering I can't even remember what the stuff tastes like!

I wasn't kidding about the amount of cabbage

So I found this straight forward option for pickling cabbage here. It pretty much involves packing shredded cabbage into sterilized jars then putting some honey and salt and then hot water, sealing them and then leaving them in the hot water cupboard for a week.

I added some grated apple and caraway seeds to my mix. Next time I may be a little bit more adventurous.

With a bit of honey and salt on the top awaiting hot water

So apparently I can open and eat the cabbage in a weeks time or wait another 6 but if I open it between weeks 1-6 it will be quite sour. This is all a bit scientific but it has to go through 3 stages of fermentation. Interesting stuff!

Sealed and ready to be banished to the darkness

Will follow up with some notes once it has fermented!

Lots and lots of cabbage

Thrifting in the Hutt

Op shopping (or thrifting) is perhaps one of my favourite pastimes.

I get a huge rush when I find a small "treasure" or two for a small price.

I have to be careful that I only buy things that I need (which can sometimes be hard) but the best thing about this type of shopping is that its ethical and its green. I am buying somebody else's unwanted item therefore I am not contributing to mass consumerism or production. Plus lets face it old stuff is way more cooler.

This particular mission was to find items for the kitchen, namely more Crown Lynn and perhaps some furniture. No luck with the furniture - all a bit too pricey for me to make a decision on by myself.

So here are my finds for this week:

4 beautiful Crown Lynn bowls - $1 each

Crown Lynn dinner plate $2.50

Crown Lynn "Woodglen" dinner plate $2.50

Glass bottles $3.50 each

Recipe book holder - $3

I also got a bunch of chopsticks ($1.50), a small yellow and white striped cake tin ($2.50), a plate stand/stacker ($1.50) and a picture book copy of The Velveteen Rabbit ($1).

Good score!

Thrifting in the Hutt

Giving back to my community

For the past 6 months I have been involved at getting our local community garden up and running.

When we moved to the area I saw an article in the local paper about it, got in touch with the organiser and began growing seedlings for it.

On December 10th 2011 the garden was made and the first lot of plants put in (including some of mine). I had best intentions of being there for this momentous occasion but a bout of food poisoning got the better of me. However I have since continued providing the garden with plants.

Last night we had a planning meeting to set up the infrastructure for the garden for the next 5 years. These included plans around drainage, on-site water, a nursery, windbreaks, a teaching space, bbq area etc. Actually there was a lot of the wish-list!

My ideas towards the garden stem from the reasons why I wanted to be part of it in the first place. I value community and communities looking after each other. There are many socio-cultural benefits from having a community garden. People can learn how to garden, people gain social connections to their neighbours, it brings people together and ultimately it brings us all together and talking!

One of my suggestions was around how to get people interested in being involved. We actually need to tell people what resources we need whether that be wood to build a garden or the skills of someone to draw up a plan.  I think sometimes people want to help but don't know what they can contribute.

For example there was these 2 old ladies at the meeting who basically said that they had turned up to the meeting to be a bit nosy because they couldn't garden to save themselves but they could make scones! Well terrific - welcome on board. There is always the need for someone to make the scones!

The best thing about this community garden project is that it is connected to several other initiatives in the community including a community orchard, a native planting scheme (which will have a nursery on the site) and the local Papa kāinga, who hope to teach courses in traditional Maori medicine, plants and raranga/weaving.

All very exciting. But in the meantime I will enjoy the immediate harvest!

Giving back to my community

Rhubarb Fizz

Having made Rhubarb cordial before (see here) I was most excited when I saw a recipe for Rhubarb Fizz in my favourite Good magazine.

My garden has rhubarb a plenty at the moment. They must enjoy this crazy rain/sun/rain/sun weather. I'm glad somebody does!

So here's the recipe - bloody easy if you ask me!

Rhubarb Fizz (courtesy of Good magazine)

1) Cut into small pieces about 8 stalks of Rhubarb (4 cups).
2) Cut up 1 lemon into small chunks
3) Place into a large bucket and add 1tsp white vinegar, 680g of sugar and 4½ litres of water.
4) Cover and leave for 48hrs
5) Strain and pour into bottles with screw top lids.
6) Leave for at least a week.
7) Refrigerate and then enjoy with ice in a tall glass!

NB: The recipe suggested using a bucket or plastic container with a sealed lid. Do you know how hard it is to find one of these? Anyway I improvised with a food covering/shower cap like thing. Please also note that the longer you leave your fizz the more fizzy it will get. Slowly loosen the cap each day to relieve the pressure in the bottle. Also be careful when opening - you could get a rhubarb shower instead!

A week later:


Wow! Not only is this drink naturally carbonated (definitely got a fizz to it) it tastes amazing! Kind of like a mixture between ginger beer and lemon cordial with a hint of rhubarb. Quite sweet so perhaps add lots of ice cubes to the glass. I tried it with a bit of vodka too - very palatable!

Final verdict: SUPER SIMPLE TO MAKE, TASTES GREAT!

Rhubarb Fizz

Made with love

So its true. Things do taste better if they were made with love.

Researchers found in this study that the person's physical experience of an event is affected by how they perceive the person that is administering the cake/medicine/pain/pleasure.

So if I make you a cake (because I am an endearing friend) then it will most definitely taste better than one bought from the shop (hmm unless its one from the Chocolate Cake Company or the lemon ricotta cake from Floriditas...). Ok maybe it won't be perfect but you will enjoy it more because you will know that I made it for you!


Same goes with things I sew, plants I grow.... I give these to people because I want them to be happy and it makes me happy to do something for them.

So I didn't really need someone to scientifically prove this for me but I'd like to thank them none the less.

Photo courtesy of Aubergine

Made with love

Neighbourly mulch

Mulch. It's pretty much just bits of broken up twigs and leaves but judging from the amount it costs to buy you would think you were laying out a red carpet.

I have been putting off buying this ($80 a trailer load/$160 delivered) gold to put on my native garden that I have created even though the garden is in desperate need of it. But the wait paid off because today while walking in my neighbourhood I came across some people chopping down a tree.

Something compelled me to go ask the guy if he was going to mulch any of the mess he was making. He told me no but how much did I need because he had a pile at the top of his drive. SCORE!

So to cut a boring story (to other people other than myself) short we went back with the car, shovelled some mulch and applied it to the garden. It looks terrific!

So this got me thinking...if we talked to our neighbours more surely we could all be a little bit more self-sufficient?

Neighbourly mulch

Jars of goodness

The baking section of my cupboard was an absolute mess so I decided that putting all the items in jars would not only solve this problem but look cool too.

It all started with the jar with the blue lid which I picked up at the Sallies op-shop for less than $1. It makes the brown sugar look so good that I just want to eat it with a spoon.

While at my local tip shop Trash Palace I thought I would have a look for some similar jars like this one and continue the trend.

Hidden underneath trays and trays of other assorted kitchen items I stumbled across a huge collection of French "Arc" glass jars.

Jackpot!

Once I soaked them and removed the old 70's labels off them they came up looking rather sweet. I have filled them with all my different baking goods. Don't they look good (despite my shonky photography!)

It seems I am not the only person to come across such cool jars. Caroline, the ultimate vintage/second hand shopper also found what looks to be that same jars! You can see her treasure finds at her blog.

Jars of goodness

Bread winner!

I got given a breadmaker for my birthday last year (at my request) and I was a little disappointed at my first attempts of using it. All I got was stodgy dough/wet bread that had not risen.

Then I discovered (through the internet) that an Australian tablespoon measurement is different from a usual one which was perhaps the reason why my (Australian breadmaker recipe) bread was failing. Who would have thought!

The king and queen of break-making in New Zealand are infact Simon and Alison Holst (perhaps I should say Queen and Prince since he's her son) and they have this amazing recipe book called funnily enough "The New Zealand Bread Book".  This quickly got added to the "all I want for Christmas.." list and Santa delivered.

Raisin and Nut

So far I've made the Five Seed, Sundried Tomato and Basil, Raisin and Nut and White breads and my partner has used the recipe to make croissants.

They are tasty breads just like you get from an actual bakery where a qualified baker makes them so I'm feeling pretty chuffed right now.

Oh and a little secret I learnt from my friend Olivia to help grainy breads to rise is to crush up a couple of vitamin C tablets and add them to the mixture. I'm still not quite sure what they do but I figure that it can't be a bad thing!

Happy Baking!

Bread winner!