This week I came across some short animated films by Linda Cockburn who blogs over at Living the Good Life.
Linda (with the help of many other talented people) has done an amazing job with these short films and I think they are a great way of starting the conversation about climate change with people you know.
These are only about 4 minutes each and are presented in a way that makes the information easy to understand and relate to. Please check these out and pass them on.
I will be emailing these to everyone I know and I encourage you to do the same.
What did you think?
I am looking forward to the follow on from these.
Saturday, 30 August 2014
Friday, 29 August 2014
Lemon Myrtle and Macadamia Nut Shortbread
This is just a basic shortbread recipe with the addition of the Lemon Myrtle powder and Macadamia Nut pieces that have been chopped up into small pieces. You can adjust the amount of Lemon Myrtle to suit your tastes and swap the Macadamias for a different type of nut if you choose.
Lemon Myrtle and Macadamia Nut Shortbread
250 gm Butter (softened)
3/4 Cup Icing Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla Essence
1/2 Cup Cornflour
2 Cups Plain Flour
Pinch of Salt
4 Tsp Lemon Myrtle
200 gm Chopped Macadamias
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line two trays with baking paper.
Cream your butter and sugar in a mixer until the butter is pale. Add you vanilla essence, lemon myrtle and macadamia nuts and mix through.
Sift in your dry ingredients and mix together using a bread knife. Once you mix is combined make truffle sized balls of mix and flatten on your tray.
Bake for 10 - 15 minutes or until the bottom of the biscuits just start to brown.
This mix is very short and crumbly are a slightly green colour and are perfect with a good cup of tea. They freeze well and defrost quickly so are great to have on hand in case you get surprise visitors and want to offer up something a little bit special.
Lemon Myrtle and Macadamia Nut Shortbread
250 gm Butter (softened)
3/4 Cup Icing Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla Essence
1/2 Cup Cornflour
2 Cups Plain Flour
Pinch of Salt
4 Tsp Lemon Myrtle
200 gm Chopped Macadamias
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line two trays with baking paper.
Cream your butter and sugar in a mixer until the butter is pale. Add you vanilla essence, lemon myrtle and macadamia nuts and mix through.
Sift in your dry ingredients and mix together using a bread knife. Once you mix is combined make truffle sized balls of mix and flatten on your tray.
Bake for 10 - 15 minutes or until the bottom of the biscuits just start to brown.
This mix is very short and crumbly are a slightly green colour and are perfect with a good cup of tea. They freeze well and defrost quickly so are great to have on hand in case you get surprise visitors and want to offer up something a little bit special.
Thursday, 28 August 2014
Harvesting And Storing Lemon Myrtle
One of our neighbours has a large Lemon Myrtle tree and recently I harvested some leaves to use in the kitchen.
Lemon Myrtle is a native bush food and has a strong lemon scent that will impart it's lemon flavour when added to foods. I like to add it to fish, chicken and lamb and it makes a great addition to sweet treats too. if you don not have a tree nearby you can buy it in the spice section from selected stores.
To prepare the leaves you first need to give them a good wash. I soak them all in the sink and then pick them out one at a time and use a soft scrubbing brush to give them a gentle scrub on both sides of the leaves. This removes all the dust and spiderwebs that are attached.
I then spread the ones I want to dry out on a towel on top of the chest freezer. Once they are dry I place them on a tray in the oven and set it to 50 degrees Celsius and dry them out for a few hours then leave in the oven to cool. This may need to be repeated to get the leaves fully dry. If you have a dehydrator then you can use that instead.
I do not normally only dry half of the leaves an the rest of them I add to a stock pot and cover with water and simmer covered for an hour. Once the leaves have flavoured the water I freeze it in takeaway containers. I use it to add to fruit juice and punch in the summer for a refreshing drink.
Once the leaves are dried I put them in my herb chopping attachment from my stick blender or my food processor, depending on the quantity, and chop the dried leaves until they are as fine as I can get them. I then use my mortar and pestle to get it really fine. I just pound it for a bit then sieve out the fine stuff and keep repeating until it is all as fine as you want.
You can then store it in an airtight jar until you are ready to use it.
There are a whole range of recipes online and you can check out some here for ideas. My favourite is Lemon Myrtle and Macadamia Nut Shortbread and I will post the recipe to that tomorrow.
Have you ever harvested your own lemon myrtle?
Do you ever use it in cooking?
Lemon Myrtle is a native bush food and has a strong lemon scent that will impart it's lemon flavour when added to foods. I like to add it to fish, chicken and lamb and it makes a great addition to sweet treats too. if you don not have a tree nearby you can buy it in the spice section from selected stores.
To prepare the leaves you first need to give them a good wash. I soak them all in the sink and then pick them out one at a time and use a soft scrubbing brush to give them a gentle scrub on both sides of the leaves. This removes all the dust and spiderwebs that are attached.
I then spread the ones I want to dry out on a towel on top of the chest freezer. Once they are dry I place them on a tray in the oven and set it to 50 degrees Celsius and dry them out for a few hours then leave in the oven to cool. This may need to be repeated to get the leaves fully dry. If you have a dehydrator then you can use that instead.
I do not normally only dry half of the leaves an the rest of them I add to a stock pot and cover with water and simmer covered for an hour. Once the leaves have flavoured the water I freeze it in takeaway containers. I use it to add to fruit juice and punch in the summer for a refreshing drink.
Once the leaves are dried I put them in my herb chopping attachment from my stick blender or my food processor, depending on the quantity, and chop the dried leaves until they are as fine as I can get them. I then use my mortar and pestle to get it really fine. I just pound it for a bit then sieve out the fine stuff and keep repeating until it is all as fine as you want.
There are a whole range of recipes online and you can check out some here for ideas. My favourite is Lemon Myrtle and Macadamia Nut Shortbread and I will post the recipe to that tomorrow.
Have you ever harvested your own lemon myrtle?
Do you ever use it in cooking?
Wednesday, 27 August 2014
A Lost Lorikeet and A Sick Chicken
This morning when I went out to let Jessie off from her kennel I could hear a very loud screeching from the hedge and when I looked under the plants I discovered a baby lorikeet.
I could tell it was young as it did not have a coloured beak and had not developed many tail feathers. It could not fly and was trying to push through the hedge.
I had just take Jessie's coat off so I used that to cover the bird and pick it up. I know from experince that lorikeets have very sharp beaks.
I called the local wildlife carer and she said I could drop it off with her as she already had 3 others she was looking after. Apparently the Rainbow Lorikeets have breed earlier than normal for the last 2 years and this means that there is not a lot of nectar around for them to raise their young. This means they end up kicking the babies out early because there is not enough food .
We also have a sick chicken on our hands. I noticed that over the past week 'Squawky' was not coming to eat with the other chickens as was quiet and subdued. I thought that maybe she had worms or mites so I dusted her and wormed all of the chickens but she did not want to eat so the worming mash missed her.
So last night I caught her and put her in our home made wire cage so I could check her out today.
When we have a sick chicken I like to isolate them give them a bit of TLC and see how they go. They either get better or go to chicken heaven, we do not take $15 chickens to the vet not even if they are our favourite.
There did not seem to be any mites but she was very thin and lethargic. I offered her some mashed boiled egg mixed with yogurt but she was not interested.
Today I got her out of her cage and gave her a thorough inspection. Her vent was normal as was her comb and her eyes were still bright. I felt her crop (where a chickens food collects) and it was not hard so I knew it was not an impacted crop. But her crop was soft ans squishy and I could feel food in there when I massaged it. This told me that her crop had not emptied overnight and even though she had not eaten there was still food in her crop. So I did the sniff test as I suspected she might have sour crop and peww stink! Yep I think I found the problem. Sour crop is a yeast infection in the crop and the if you massage the crop and smell the chickens breath it smells rotten.
So now that I know (pretty sure) what I am dealing with I can try and treat it. I just hope that I have caught it in time.
I will keep her isolated for a few days and for the next 24 hours she will be on water only and I will be giving her crop a gentle massage a few times a day. After that I will try and get her back onto an egg yogurt mix and see how things go. I have seen suggestions to use and not use apple cider vinegar end even red wine but I think I will stay away from the acids and will instead add a pinch of bicarb soda to her water.
Do you have any experience with Sour Crop? What have you tried or had success with?
I could tell it was young as it did not have a coloured beak and had not developed many tail feathers. It could not fly and was trying to push through the hedge.
I had just take Jessie's coat off so I used that to cover the bird and pick it up. I know from experince that lorikeets have very sharp beaks.
I called the local wildlife carer and she said I could drop it off with her as she already had 3 others she was looking after. Apparently the Rainbow Lorikeets have breed earlier than normal for the last 2 years and this means that there is not a lot of nectar around for them to raise their young. This means they end up kicking the babies out early because there is not enough food .
We also have a sick chicken on our hands. I noticed that over the past week 'Squawky' was not coming to eat with the other chickens as was quiet and subdued. I thought that maybe she had worms or mites so I dusted her and wormed all of the chickens but she did not want to eat so the worming mash missed her.
So last night I caught her and put her in our home made wire cage so I could check her out today.
When we have a sick chicken I like to isolate them give them a bit of TLC and see how they go. They either get better or go to chicken heaven, we do not take $15 chickens to the vet not even if they are our favourite.
There did not seem to be any mites but she was very thin and lethargic. I offered her some mashed boiled egg mixed with yogurt but she was not interested.
Today I got her out of her cage and gave her a thorough inspection. Her vent was normal as was her comb and her eyes were still bright. I felt her crop (where a chickens food collects) and it was not hard so I knew it was not an impacted crop. But her crop was soft ans squishy and I could feel food in there when I massaged it. This told me that her crop had not emptied overnight and even though she had not eaten there was still food in her crop. So I did the sniff test as I suspected she might have sour crop and peww stink! Yep I think I found the problem. Sour crop is a yeast infection in the crop and the if you massage the crop and smell the chickens breath it smells rotten.
So now that I know (pretty sure) what I am dealing with I can try and treat it. I just hope that I have caught it in time.
I will keep her isolated for a few days and for the next 24 hours she will be on water only and I will be giving her crop a gentle massage a few times a day. After that I will try and get her back onto an egg yogurt mix and see how things go. I have seen suggestions to use and not use apple cider vinegar end even red wine but I think I will stay away from the acids and will instead add a pinch of bicarb soda to her water.
Do you have any experience with Sour Crop? What have you tried or had success with?
Tuesday, 26 August 2014
Seed Raising And Summer Planting
Here in Australia we are technically in the last week of winter but because I live in the sub-tropics we are actually in spring already and only weeks away from summer if I had to guess since strawberry season has started. You see we really only get a few weeks of spring and autumn, about 3 months of winter and about 7 months of summer.
In the past few years I have been caught out and one minute it is winter and the next we are into summer temperatures and I do not have my summer veggie seedlings ready. Because the nights are still cool it is hard to get summer seeds like capsicums, tomatoes and eggplants germinated in time for the warm days so this year I am trying a different strategy.
I am still raising most of my veggies from seeds but I have also purchased a small number of more advanced seedlings that are already about 15 cm high that I have planted out this week.
When raising seeds I find the easiest way is to raise then in a foam box with a deep layer of seed raising mix which you can rad about here.
We have had some great rain here over the weekend and so It looks like I got my seedlings in just in time on Friday. They have all been well watered in and now I just need them to grow as fast as they can because I can't wait to eat some tasty beefsteak tomatoes.
Are you thinking about summer veggies yet?
In the past few years I have been caught out and one minute it is winter and the next we are into summer temperatures and I do not have my summer veggie seedlings ready. Because the nights are still cool it is hard to get summer seeds like capsicums, tomatoes and eggplants germinated in time for the warm days so this year I am trying a different strategy.
I am still raising most of my veggies from seeds but I have also purchased a small number of more advanced seedlings that are already about 15 cm high that I have planted out this week.
 |
| Capsicums, eggplants, lettuce and basil with a whole lot of self seeded coriander at the end of the garden bed. |
 |
| The last of the winter veggies coming on are now sharing the garden bed with lettuce, capsicums and zucchini. |
We have had some great rain here over the weekend and so It looks like I got my seedlings in just in time on Friday. They have all been well watered in and now I just need them to grow as fast as they can because I can't wait to eat some tasty beefsteak tomatoes.
Are you thinking about summer veggies yet?
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