Best Baked Beans

This is a really tasty version of baked beans that is based on a Jamie Oliver recipe.  It makes a great Sunday breakfast, lunch with salad, nacho topping or side dish.  This is what baked beans should taste like.
I am preserving some of this batch in my Fowlers jars as a bit of an experiment as it it is easy to make this in big batches.  The recipe calls for Cannellini Beans but as we are doing our stockpile challenge I used Borlotti Beans and it worked just as well.

Best Baked Beans

4 Tbl Olive Oil
4 Onions
2 Heaped Tsp Smoked Paprika
3 Large Dried Chillies (Chipotle) or
5 Small Dried Chillies (I get mine from an Asian grocer)
50 gm Butter
750 gm Dried Cannellini Beans or
6 Tins Cnnellini Beans
1200 gm Diced Tomatoes
2 Tbl Tomato Paste
3 Tbl Golden Syrup
2 Tbl Apple Cider Vinegar
3 Bay Leaves
2 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Ground White Pepper

Soak your Beans overnight then drain and rinse.  Cover with fresh water and cook till soft then drain off most of the liquid and set aside.  (If you are using tinned beans you do not need to drain them.)
In a large pan put the oil and cook the onions over a medium heat till soft.  Turn the heat down and add the paprika and cook for another few minutes.
While you are doing this boil the jug and soak your dried chillies in 500 ml of boiling water
Add the butter and once melted add the rest of the ingredients except the chillies.  Stir everything to combine and set over a low heat.
Remove the chillies from the water ad add the water to the pan.  Dice the chillies finely and add to the pan. The heat should be low enough that bubbles are just coming to the surface occasionally.  Cook like this for an hour.
Taste and adjust your seasoning if required then enjoy.

Wet Wet Wet

Well yet again we are flooded in.  We have had another 200mls of rain in the last 2 days and it is still raining. So at this stage I have no photos of our latest farming adventures.  But once I can get a break in the weather so I can get out there with the camera I will post about it.

 Jessie finds it very hard to stay out of the rain as she still has bundles of energy to burn.  Which means that we also spend time in the rain with her.  Thankfully a hot bath full to the brim is not an issue.

Hope you are high and dry where you are.

Joel Salatin Polyface Farming Masterclass

On Saturday I attended a day long course all about Pastured Beef and Pork presented by Joel Salatin who is is internationally respected for his farm's innovative, integrated animal systems.  And what a great day it was.

Joel Salatin is a world-leading example of how a small family farm can become an extremely diverse and profitable Local Food producer, and how the benefits of Local Food Systems can create resilience, stability and abundance for both local farmers and the wider community.  You can visit his farm Polyface here.

During the day we learnt about:

• Polyface's 'Salad Bar Beef' systems, which improve the land while producing great 'beyond organic' beef
• Polyface's pigearator systems, using pigs as compost turners over winter
• Polyface's forested pig systems, and how they are regenerating the landscape while producing great pork
• Polyface's innovative direct marketing and buying club systems for getting the above products to market.

It was a big day with over 200 attendees but Joel was a generous and entertaining host.  Hubby was working so it was just me who attended and I am so glad I did.  I learnt a lot and it will really help when it comes to planning our new property in New Zealand.

Joel presenting on Saturday

In the mean time we have decided to implement at least one idea here on the farm straight away which I will expand on in another post as I want to tell the whole story.

The day was supported by a number of groups including Food Connect.  They had set up a number of displays at the venue.  Food Connect are all about connecting the farmers with the customers and are currently available in both Brisbane and Sydney.  It is really worth checking out the service they offer if you live in one of these cities.

I met some great people on the day and would really have liked to have attended the other 2 days but I had work commitments   The day really re-energized me in my beliefs about the importance of knowing where my food is sourced, how it is produced and buying locally.  So you can probably expect a bit of that to flow into my posts in the near future.

Calling All Melbourne Lovers

At the end of March Hubby and are heading to Melbourne for a few days.  I won the trip at work and so now we are considering what to do.  We will be in Melbourne for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and half of Sunday.

We are staying in the CBD and will be using public transport.  We have no plans other than to visit the Holocaust Museum at some stage.

So I want to hear from you if you live in or know Melbourne and have some ideas about must do/see/eat/visit places please let me know.

Salmon Flan

This is such a great recipe and works well as a lunch or light dinner with salad.  It is really easy and you can use tuna instead of salmon.  If you have not made your own pastry before then give this one a go (although you do not need a food processor I find it gives me the best result) as it is really easy.

Salmon Flan

Short Crust Pastry

1 1/5 Cups Plain Flour
100gm Salted Butter
4-8 Tbsp Cold Water
Ice Cubes

Dice the butter into small cubes and return to the fridge.  Add a couple of ice cubes to 1/2 a cup of water and set to the side.  Sift your flour into your food processor with the chopping blade, add your diced butter and pulse until the mix looks like coarse breadcrumbs.  Or sift into a bowl if you are doing it by hand and add your diced butter the rub the mixture together using your fingers. Add the cold water 1 Tbsp at a time until the mix just holds together.  Wrap the mix in cling wrap and place in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

Flan Filing

5 Eggs
300ml Pouring Cream
1/4 Tsp Salt
14 Tsp White Pepper
1 Small Onion
1/2 Cup Grated Tasty Cheese
200 - 400 gm Tinned Salmon or Tuna (what ever you have on hand)

Heat oven to 220 degrees Celsius   With a fork beat together eggs, cream, salt and pepper.  Dice the onion really finely until the onion is turning to mush and add to the egg mix along with the onion.  Drain the fish and retain the juice.  If the fish has a lot of bones you can remove them then mash the fish with a fork.  Add the fish and 1/2 of the liquid to the egg mix and mix to combine.
Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll thinly.  Line a 20 -25cm flan dish and trim off the excess which can be frozen for later use.
Pour filling into pastry lined flan dish and bake at 220 degrees for 20 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180 degrees and bake a further 15 minutes or until the filling is just et in the middle.

Serve hot or warm with salad.