Moving to NZ - The Planning Begins

We are headed over to New Zealand for a few weeks so I will be absent for a bit.

We are headed over to celebrate my Mums 60th and to check out the land we have purchased.  While we are away we have house sitters coming to look after the animals.

We will be making some plans about building a house and setting up the property.  It will be another year or so before we move but we are starting to plan for the move.

At this stage we are looking at building a straw bale home and I have been working on some plans.  Hubby's dad is a retired architect and he and my mother in law are coming over as well.  They will spend a few days  with us then heading off to do some sightseeing on their own.  Hubby's dad will help us design a house so the stage we are at now is working out exactly what we want.

I would be interested in hearing about your experience if you have built a house before.  Any tips for us in this early planning stage?

Glorious Quinces and Making Quince Paste

I think Quinces are the most glorious fruit.
Admittedly they look like a lumpy misshapen pear with peach fuzz all over them.  The can also be quite astringent so really have to be cooked to be enjoyed.  But what I love most about them is the smell.  If you have never smelt quinces then I would describe the smell as a sweet spicy and musky smell.  Imagine pears poached in a spiced syrup and you get the idea.  Historically quinces were used to fragrance rooms (as well as all the other uses) and if you place a bowl of them in a closed room for the day you come back to a spicy scent that you can not quite identify until you remember the quinces.

Just like their cousins apples and pears, quinces are in season during Autumn.  I asked my green grocer to order some in for me and they were only $3.99kg.  Quinces store well so I ordered a few kilos.  I use quinces in a few different ways.  I use them in tagines when cooking Middle Eastern and North African dishes, in deserts and I also like to make a big batch of quince paste to last the next 12 months.

Quince paste is really quite easy to make and in comparison to buying it it is also very cheap.  Quince paste keeps well so you can easily make a years supply when they are in season.  Quince paste is also one of those thing that is always appreciated as a gift especially by cheese lovers.  You need to set aside a day where you can make this as it cooks long and slow.

Quince Paste

2 kg Quinces

1.2 kg Sugar

Juice of 2 Lemons

2 Vanilla Pods

Wash the fur off the quinces, peel and discard the skin.  Quater them and cut out the hard cores placing the cores in a large saucepan with 300 gms of sugar and 2 litres of water.  Bring the cores to the boil then reduce to a simmer for 2 hours.

Coring the fruit

The pot with the cores

In another saucepan add all the flesh from the fruit with the remaining sugar, vanilla pods, lemon juice and 3 litres of water.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 hours or until the fruit is soft and pink.  Then discard the vanilla pods.

Cooking the flesh

During cooking the fruit will turn pink

Remove the soft fruit from the liquid and set the fruit aside.  Reduce the liquid over a medium heat until you have a very thick syrup but do not reduce to a caramel.
Meanwhile remove the cores from their liquid and discard the cores.  This liquid is full of pectin and also needs to be reduced to a thick syrup

The now pink quince flesh

Once both liquids have been reduced they need to be tipped into one pot.  Tip the cooked fruit back into the syrup and use a hand blender to blend to a smooth purée   Return to the heat and stir occasionally until the mix is very thick.  The aim is to remove as much moisture as possible.

Heat your oven to 200 degrees then once the mix is very thick spread out on an oven tray lined with baking paper or any heat proof dishes.  Silicone bake ware is great for this.  Place your tray/s in the oven and turn off the heat.  Leave in the oven until it is completely cool.  Once cool slice into portions and store in a sealed container in the fridge.

I think I made about $100 worth of quince paste for less than $10.

What are your your thought on quinces?
Do you make your own quince paste.

Using Worm Castings

Recently I added another tray, tray number 3, to my worm farm.  This meant I had an empty tray on top, a full tray of castings and partially eaten food scraps, and a tray absolutly full to the brim of pure worm castings.
Because I had waited until I had 2 full trays there were no worms living in the lower tray at all.  That made it really easy to harvest the castings.  I plant to add most of them to my garden beds but I also like to use them for planting out seedlings.

Lovely worm castings, you can see on the right that the castings were packed all the
way to the base of the next tray.  I dug out half a bucket full and they were packed so
tight you could hardly tell I had even taken any.

The way I use my worm castings with seedlings helps give them a nutrient boost, helps protect to roots and makes them easier to plant out as there is more mass to hold onto and push the soil against.
First of all I take a handful of worm castings and I flatten it out to be a flat disk and lie your seedling on top and wrap it with the castings disk.

Once you have your seedling wrapped in the castings it makes it much easier to plant.

I find that the seedlings I plant this way do really well.

Do you use worm castings? How do you use them?

Wood Expo

Last weekend I went to a local wood expo with some of my colleagues that I work with running our community festival in October.  The car show I manage is held in conjunction with a larger festival, the Kilcoy Wood Wine and Art Festival.  This year I am also working on the larger festival so my colleagues and I went to the wood expo scouting for new and interesting stall holders.
We saw some beautiful hand made furniture and homewares.

My friend Marg testing out a swing chair.

There were lots of instrument makers showing off their craft.  There was everything from violin makers to didgeridoos.

We also spent time listening to this duo who play and make cigar box guitars.  They were fantastic and we hope to have them at our festival.

There were timber milling demonstrations and even some beautifully made canoes and kayaks.

It was a great day out with lots to see try and buy.

We came away with lots of great contacts for new stall holders but are still thinking about other types of stalls we can invite.

What type of stalls do you look forward to seeing at festivals?