Food

A recent posting from HHF was about raw milk. The topic arose by chance from a document found in our files while conducting a general cleanup. It dawned that the topic should not have been about raw milk at all but the broader and more important topic of the food we ingest everyday.

Our bodies need food and water to survive, grow, remain healthy, procreate and produce the energy to conduct our daily lives. Yet so often Jean and I comment to each other how little importance we observe being placed on the act of consumption and the object of consumption.

For us at HHF food is more than something that needs to ingested at three or more regular intervals each 24 hours. It is more than a task to be conducted rapidly before moving onto an activity of another form.

It is the acts of planning, growing, gathering, preparation and consumption. If anything it is the objective not a result.

When looking through seed catalogues or seedlings in a shop we get inspired and plant more than we can ever consume. There is a desire to grow the very best quality avoiding artificial stimulants and chemicals. We look to Steiner, Fukuoka, Holmgren and Mollison and others for guidance.

The selections are based on diversity of species, different elemental values, colours, flavours shapes, nutritional values and recipe needs.

The harvesting is for peak nutritional value and freshness. Nothing picked before preparation is about to start. Preserves in our pantry are few. Just a couple of basics that are needed for some special recipes. With the climate at HHF fruits and vegetables grow all year round. Recipes are selected for the contents of the garden.

There are some items that don't quite match the pick fresh category such as Potatoes, Pumpkins Garlic and Onions which are harvested and stored. But Carrots, Cucumbers, beets, Broccoli,greens fruits and as much else as possible are picked for the table.

Perfection in these pursuits can never be achieved. Sometimes you do what you can with what you have. While living in Sydney mid week for seven years I took my stock of vegetables with me. Yes they weren't the freshest by the end of the week but they were better than anything I could buy.

We steam vegetables rather than boil, raw where ever it applies. Don't juice eating the skin, pulp and all the vitamins and minerals they contain.

What a crime that the most popular grapes are seedless as are melons. What about the food value of those missing seeds?

People in general and fortunately not all desire convenience. Ready to eat, nil preparation, fully processed and preserved. And then we impact the health system. Food is health.

The most enjoyable meals are those prepared with care and served to friends over wine and diverse conversation.

Preserving

Last year we had a few spare Capsicum and tried a preserving recipe. During Winter wanting some filling material for a pizza we tried the preserved Capsicums. To our pleasure they were surprisingly flavoursome. It was a simple preservation recipe which did not use excessive salt, vinegar or sugar leaving the preserve tasty straight from the jar.

Capsicum

One of the issues with many preserving recipes is the excessive use of sugars and salts or vinegars. We have tried to eliminate the use of sugar in our diet and now limit ourselves to a little honey in homemade chocolate. Salt is a bit easier to handle as a period of soaking prior to use can reduce the salt content. We do this with Haloumi. Vinegar can be pleasant in small quantities but not so when excessive and is harder to remove.

Eggplant

We could freeze produce but there is a limit to the number of freezers that we want to operate at any one time. We already run two chest freezers and have a backup but not in use upright freezer (which is inefficient despite being reasonably new). As well as our kitchen refrigerator we have a cheese fridge in the Cave and a backup freezer/fridge which is used for garlic, butter vulnerable seeds, chilling bulk milk and various other functions including drinks. It came from a relatives estate and is highly efficient. More than enough electricity usage for one household.

Apart from energy usage freezers demand dependence on the grid. Not an attractive feature for preparedness minded people.

Anyway back to the main topic. Some time ago we came across this book via a friend and found it very good. Excellent, simple preserving recipes that produce a good result. Highly recommended.

Pietro Demaio's Preserving the Italian Way

Part of the recipe we used calls for cooking the vegetable in vinegar of which we have loads. A by-product of wine making is occasionally you have a bottle or two that doesn't work out. We keep a few flagons in the laundry with cotton wool stoppers and tip the wine into those. Every now and then when we remember some of the flagon material is decanted into bottles and stored in the cave. Mostly it's red wine vinegar but apart from imparting a little colour it works just as well as white vinegar.

Red Wine Vinegar

The Things We Keep

Years ago before the Internet whenever we read an interesting article on a topic that attracted us we would either keep the article or photocopy the section that drew our attention. Over time there is a build up of material and because there is a filing cabinet they find their way into the cabinet under some heading or another.

In recent years it became obvious that it was easier to research a topic via our own extensive collection of books, the public library and the Internet. The filing cabinet of documents becoming largely redundant. Gradually a review of this collection of suspension folders has been occurring and much material is finding its way into either compost, recycling or reused as note paper before joining the previous two homes.

Anything that is extremely rare and worth keeping which isn't much joins a binder and is held in place with a plastic pocket.

One such binder is on cheese making. It contains many recipes for making cheeses and technical articles on the process.

This morning by chance over Green Tea (being a fast day that is all we get) I reviewed an article from the filing cabinet before deciding its fate.

 

These are extracts. I'd love to give attribution but there is no indication of source on the photocopy to help.

“Rennet works best when milk is warm and contains soluble calcium. Milk naturally contains calcium in a soluble form, but if it is boiled or heated to a high temperature this calcium becomes insoluble, and rennet will not work. “

“Pasteurisation also kills most of the lactic acid-producing bacteria in milk”

“In the past acid-curd cheese was traditionally made from milk which had gone sour. However, this was raw milk which soured 'normally'. It is not advisable to use pasteurised milk which has soured or gone off for cheese making or in cooking. Pasteurized milk keeps for longer because nearly all the lactic acid bacteria are destroyed by the heat treatment. If it does go 'off' this may be caused by the growth of other bacteria which could be harmful. It is wiser to throw such milk away.”

 

I'd have to dispute the claim that pasteurised milk keeps longer with the exception of UHT milk. Our raw milk keeps well for 10 days. And why would you put UHT milk into your body?

So what was the point in introducing pasteurisation to milk? A conscious effort to increase Osteoporosis or provide a medium for dangerous bacteria?

Uses for Grape Marc

A final clean up of the Cave today as part of the end of vintage. The last job was to break down the basket press and perform a thorough clean. There are still some pears and apples maturing in the orchard and the press will receive additional work between now and the end of April. After that it gets a coat of non toxic paint to the base plate and is put aside for another year.

Just as the grape marc was about to be tossed into the compost there was a pause and some light globes (LED) went off. There was the faint memory of a cheese we had seen at Simon Johnson's shop more than a decade ago. It was a cheese that had been stored in grape marc. We obviously tried a piece and found it interesting.

Grape Marc

After a quick check on the web a few options were uncovered.

Grape Marc Aged Tomme

here was a Havarti in the cheese fridge from last October that we felt was a bit dry. It went into a container shrouded in marc with a bit of freshly pressed wine. And as a proper test a nicer cheddar like cheese was also covered in marc and stored. These will stay like that for 2-3 months.

In Europe cheeses like this are made and stored for a period of months then coinciding with the end of vintage they are brought out and shrouded in grape marc for 3-4 months before consumption.

Just in case any of these cheeses turn out fabulous a few jars of marc were frozen. No need to wait until next vintage for the ingredients.

We finally caught up with a nearby farmer who had a stack of mulch silage round bales for sale at $30/~ton. We met up with him at 2.30 and loaded the ute and trailer as a bonus he chucked on a third bale as a bit of compensation for having to wait so long (at no extra cost). By good fortune we'd brought along a jar of our creamed honey as gift. Good swap. It always pays to sweeten a deal whenever possible.

The rain keeps coming

Beginning to become annoying this rain. They say you should never complain but there is still some washing on the line and just as it begins to get dry another shower hits.

We moved the cattle on HHF into one of our front paddocks which now had some good growth. Just so they wouldn't pig out we fed them their sprouted grain and some Lucerne. They seem very happy with green grass even whinging Warren was quiet.

After knocking over the early morning chores of feeding whoever needed feeding and opening pens for chickens and ducks we performed another Yoga session which seems to make us both feel better. Being a fast day we got ourselves busy after a green tea to take the mind off food.

Jean went across the river to harrow some paddocks. I thought it would be too wet but surprisingly the RTV left no tracks on the river paddocks when I was feeding the cows earlier that morning. Nothing like good alluvial soil. She arrived home soaking wet. apparently a heavy shower caught her by surprise while she was negotiating some paddocks which needed gates opened and closed as the harrows were brought across from the other side of the property.

The last of the grapes needed pressing today. Three batches of Tannat. One grown on HHF and two purchased batches only being different by the yeasts used. The first batch was very powerful but drinkable straight out of the press as was our very small home grown batch. Should develop well. But the real standout was the batch using VR21 yeast. What an amazing difference. So good in fact that two glasses were put aside to have with tonight's meal. This process of leaving the wine on skins for a minimum of 22 days does amazing things. A 50/50 mix of American Oak and French Oak chips went into the demijohns. This should really round off the wine.

Our tiny harvest of 3.8 KG needed the baby press.

Working in the Cave with clean floors is pleasant. Very annoying whenever wine splashes on to it. We have even been taking off our boots whenever we enter. That's the trouble with tidiness.

Being a fast day and having done yoga in the morning we decided to really punish ourselves and finish the day in the pool with light workout. It turned out that light was all we could do. At 4pm the pool had a lot of activity of the 5 lanes 2 were taken up with swimming club training. A third had someone doing laps and that left us to share the remaining two with the Learn to Swim class. Still all was not lost we completed our High Intensity Training session first with 3 x 30 second sessions and then went on to Aquarobics. The only bit we skipped was the swimming. Back home to dinner pre and wine making. A good day.

And it Continues to Rain

Another day of rain. Not heavy just a steady drizzle from time to time, but it keeps coming back. Another 16 mm overnight. After a prolonged dry spell farmers say "We need 3 inches to give it a good soak". We have now just passed the 3" mark.

The plan was to wash the Cave floor gradually over the next week, but in the absence of something else to do in the wet it proceeded to get done today. Washed a section, then when it dried moved a bit of stuff about and washed another section. I've found that the scrubbing brush is adequate but that a big handful of steel wool is even better. Especially getting crushed grape berries off.

I'm only using a little cloudy Ammonia in the scrubbing water and just plain water and a rag to wipe up the mess. Slow and steady progress and by late afternoon it was all done. Not under any moveable objects close to the wall or too close to the edges where the visitors (termites) might be put off by the smell as I didn't want to disturb the little visitors at this time. Once they have left home I'll get in and do the remainder of the floor.

This is one of the Termite baits. You can see they have built a protective edge around the foil which means they are eating it. Lovely!

What is a bit of a shock is how dirty and discoloured the floor had been. Not that I managed to get it pristine this time round but it is so clean that when the light is turned on it is extremely bright in the room. The floor was originally painted with a pale yellow cement paint and now that the stains are removed there is a certain lightness.

So clean

Yesterday's writings mentioned Core Strength training. Well today just for something different we did Yoga. It's a DVD that we have been using for years by Gary Bromely. Just about the right level of difficulty for us, easy to follow and an excellent mix of stretches. We enjoyed it having not done a session for while and felt great afterward. Something special about doing Yoga first up in the morning before starting the day.

Things pottered on nicely all day. A batch of Fetta started and finished and another batch of chocolate using our newly created recipe of 3 Coconut Oil, 1 Honey and 7 Cocoa. Jean has taken a fancy to just plain chocolate that is moulded flat and quite thin i.e. less than 5 mm. It has a great texture and the thinness lets it melt nicely in the mouth. And the good bit is that it is full of Cocoa and a small piece is filling.

Rain

The forecast was for 5-10 mm but for the 24 hours to 9am Friday morning we had 30mm and then by 9 am Saturday morning another 32 mm and it drizzled all day. As usual we missed the opportunity to trim edges and mow lawns earlier in the week and now the grass has run away and the ground too soggy to navigate. By the time it is dry enough in a couple of days it should be a nice height. Just when we were getting used to it being excessively dry and getting out of the habit of maintaining the lawn. What little hand mowing we did perform went into making compost. No drama, this growth will produce some excellent mulch for the gardens and around the fruit trees. Always a bright side.

The milk collection was left until this morning. Jean said I should find two smiling dairy farmers. I had to remind them but they dutifully stood side by side and put on broad grins.

We ventured into Raymond Terrace to pick up a garden fork. We have one really good one made from high tensile steel which never bends and it is getting a bit tatty. The prongs have worn down and are needle sharp. There is a second one we recycled from my mother's estate but it is mild steel and any excessive force bends the prongs. The Aldi version said high tensile and a little testing in the shop looked promising and so at $9 it found a home.

Rather than go to the pool so late in the day we dusted off a book on Core Strength Training and followed the instructions. Five minutes of aerobic activity on the exercise bike. Stretches for about 20 minutes and then performed all the Core Strength exercises once just to get the hang of it. It didn't feel like we were doing much but by the end of an hour of grunting, groaning and laughing we were pretty sweaty. An hour later we were feeling a bit sore as well. Just as well we didn't perform the 6-8 repetitions. At least we made a start.

Why do this? Jean ran the tape measure over us this morning and we hopped onto scales. She has a beautiful BMI of 23 which is easy when you are 6'1". I on the other hand bowl up with a BMI of 29 - not good. Shorter and obviously fatter around the middle. One way to address this is work on the middle bit i.e. Core strength. Just clip a few inches off and the BMI starts to look a bit more respectable. Since she raised the issue we will now both suffer while I address my inadequacy.

Well the wine making moves along. The press needed dismantling and cleaning and the Beurre Bosc Perry had slowed to a trickling bubble and was ready for racking. No 15 litre demijohns remaining and so dipped into the stock of 5's filling three plus a 750 ml.

A wet day is a good day to address the cleaning of the Cave. And so it started with knee pads, a scrubbing brush and a bucket of ammonia water. Hands and knees just like in Upstairs Downstairs only I just did a small section. The plan is to do a little each day. It does look a lot better.