Hello! Life is full of little obsessions. Lately mine has absolutely been about reducing the amount of plastic coming into the house. I was inspired by the recent ABC Four Corners documentary on the failing recycling industry in Australia, particularly the recycled glass market, and the mass warehouse storage facilities filled with broken glass waiting to be recycled. I also heard an alarming statistic the other day – in the first ten years of this century we have produced more plastic then we did in the ENTIRE LAST CENTURY. Finally the science is out on how long it takes for plastic to breakdown, but a known known is that it at least takes longer than our lifetime. So every piece of plastic I buy/use, I am sending to landfill for my children's lifetime and beyond. It really got me thinking about how complicit I am in all of this excessive plastic production.
The primary plastic culprit in our house is groceries. And I am the grocery shopper, so it is really up to me to lift my zero waste game. My theory is if I reduce our supermarket intake (processed foods) , and increase my market intake (unprocessed and likely to be unpackaged, food) then we will reduce our plastic consumption.
In our early, pre-zero waste days I would say the ratio would be 3:1 in the supermarket's favour, in terms of quantity.
A couple of years down the track, and this week when I went shopping, our ratios completely reversed. It did not take long. Every month or so, I look for some new alternatives. For example, with a bit of research, I located a deli that sold cheese cut from cheese rounds (like a beautiful triple cream brie) as well as tasty cheese – that was not pre-wrapped in gladwrap. The deli just wrapped it up in paper and I bought it home and put it in a cheese cloth. I bought some fresh pasta in a stainless steel tin – they just "tared" my tin (put it on the scales and pressed reset so I did not pay for the weight of the tin).
I then went to an organic butcher and purchased my meat in old Tupperware-types of containers. I know this is still plastic, but I also don't believe in throwing everything away if it still has a useful life – it's going to end up in landfill in any event. Finally for mince, I reused some cereal bags that my husband eats – great for mince and they will be washed and recycled at the REDrecycle facility at Coles.
And they beautiful thing about it all – my early retirement plans were not compromised. The entire food shop came under budget, and I bought all organic meat, including two chooks, a leg of lamb, lamb and chicken mince and chicken breasts.
Strangely when I cooked with some of the meat last night, I treated it differently. Call it psychological but I found myself not just dumping the meat to brown (or stew, when I try to do things too quickly!) but cooking it in batches, looking for the browning meat and making sure not to overcook it. I put way more love and care into my food last night.
That could also coincide with the fact that I now have more time, as I am working two days a week but hey, it felt great. I enjoyed every mouthful.
In three weeks time, I am going to be a lady of leisure.
Yes – in the very practise of slowing down and simple living, I am going to stop working for twelve months.
Can you believe she is 98? Yahhhh! Something to aspire to.
One of the amazing things I am learning as I reap the benefits of my slow growing brassicas and beetroot is that the winter/early spring crop can provide a family like mine an abundance of greens for dinner. I'm almost at an over-supply moment where I am going to have to start blanching and freezing. How exciting.
I've learned to cut off the broccoli head and to keep harvesting as smaller off shoots present themselves. This alone is keeping our family of seven every second week well feed. My cauliflower is now being harvested and eaten as well.
But the true gem of the garden, to provide sustenance during the lean late winter/early spring months is all wrapped up in amazing little book called Root to Stalk cooking by Tara Duggan.
I did know about cutting off the outside of broccoli stalks and slicing the inner stalk thinly for a stir fry, but my mind was completely blown when I realised that not only could I utilise the broccoli or beetroot in my suburban paradise, but I could also utilise their leaves. Kaboom. World blown.
Just like the snout to tail philosophy, much more of the vegetables grown organically in the suburban back yard can be eaten, providing essential nourishment.
So now, as I see the tender little leaves of broccoli and cauliflower growing, I harvest them, wash and slice finely for stir-fries. Beetroot leaves are harvest also and used for salads or stir-fries.
And my garden has become so much more interesting as a result, as I learn about the parts of the garden that I can harvest for nutritional value) and feed my family. It doesn't get any better than that.
My sour dough education – still in primary school….
The starter, which should be renamed the slower takes some time to mature. My early bubbles within the first few days were not the required bacteria and natural yeast to leaven fairy floss. The starter is now three weeks old, smells like a cross between rotting fruit and nail polish remover and is bubbly in the mornings.
Bubbles are your friend. Because bubbles are your friend (to offset loaf density) your dough needs two periods to rise. Today, for the second rise, I left mine out in full lounge room sun in the morning and when I got home it was filled with wonderful bubbles. Because of the long periods required to rise, the bread maker just does not cut it. Bake and rise settings are too short in a machine.
The way you knead counts. You need to stretch and fold (as opposed to just getting your biceps into it without any precision). The gluten needs to stretch.
Even though I want to make a rye sour dough, I am not yet enough of a sour dough aficionado. I need to use the lightest possible bread flour with the most amount of gluten to get these babies to rise. Denser flours – you'll have to wait.
A pan with water also in the fridge provides sufficient moisture in the oven.
The oven needs to be super hot (I crank ours up to the max of 250 degrees centigrade).
Finally – I need to oil the pan a little bit more. Today – pan remnants, scraped off, slathered with butter received some teenage daughter squeals of "give me more" but my bread today had no bottom (still stuck to the bottom of my loaf tin…….).
So in the interests of not curating a perfect life in a blog – here is today's improved loaf. Still not high enough, still not enough bubbles, still a little bit moist in the middle – and stuck to the pan – but it's improving. I am so excited. I am definitely the type of person who starts exciting things and leaves the finishing to others. I am persevering. I WILL learn to be a sour dough expert. I can't wait to share my (perfected) Canberra north side suburban sour dough starter to someone else, to engender a love of making bread at home.