Life's ticking along

It has been an absolute age since I last posted on this blog but here I sit and think what can I say? While little has been posted about our lives on this patch of earth we call home, lots has been going on.

Planning and planting and harvesting seems to be such a part of my life that I find its hard to write something new for blog readers...but on Saturday I met one of you and my heart soared as I learnt of the success story because of taking a chance with soap making which you read about on my blog...you know who you are :)

Who would have thought that what inspired you has inspired me to write again...!? I realised that not everyone is 8 years down the garden path...some are just thinking about how to grow veggies, cook from scratch or make soap.

Spring strawberry show

So to you beginners I will write and encourage you to try just a few seeds, a few plants and few steps and you will never know where it will take you. My first seeds were sown in a 1m x 1m patch of ground in 2008 and then it became our whole garden.

Today as I stand and look out at this space I delight in its almost wild style - even though we have raised beds. It is a mature garden and many things self seed themselves like coriander, fennel, tomatoes and more.

New season peas in wood chip

But it didn't start like this...it was an idea I got based on a video I saw that took root in my thinking. The success story I heard on Saturday about a soap making business happened because this reader gave soap making a try using my recipe and then went on to develop her own beautiful soaps. Her business now employs her husband and is known country wide. How amazing is that!

So don't be afraid...just try one thing...and let it grow!

So what's been happening in our home and garden?

Our chicken coop ready for new hens

Well, we are down to just two chickens. Our last original girl from 2008 passed on and we are now eagerly awaiting 4 new chickens which we will collect on Saturday.

We also laid down a wood chip layer on all our beds and it has taken some adjusting for me to learn to plant into them. The chips were still green and it made planting difficult but through winter we grew herbs, onions, spinach, peas, broad beans and harvested loads of granadillas.

Bowls and bowls collected, swapped, eaten and given away

Our bees have survived and we eagerly await our first harvest in December.

New fig leaves

Our pavement garden is flourishing and our fig tree putting out leaves. It was joined by a banana tree and a pomegranate tree recently. Under plantings of medical herbs and edible flowers make it look really pretty.

What's going on in your vegetable gardens?

Inside our home we have continued to enjoy good food...du-uh...entertaining others around our table has become a special part of our week. Whether it be a good old fashioned braai (BBQ) or making pizza's in our pizza oven or home cooked goodness around our table it is a joy to cook for others.

Ramen - a standard winter lunch

Curry and sambals anyone?

On a personal note, those who followed the story of our feral cat that we rescued in 2014, we very sadly had to put him to sleep two weeks ago. Buster had FIV and his condition was deteriorating...so with heavy hearts we made the decision. He has been laid to rest in his favourite spot next the pond below the avocado tree. His presence is sorely missed.

Beautiful Buster - you are missed

Well, now that I have broken this long silence, I do hope to be posting often...and look forward to hearing what you are doing in your gardens.

That Sugar Book ~ book review

Recently I was lent Damon Gameau's book "That Sugar Book". I opened the pages with a bit of trepidation wondering about the new guilt trip I was about to lay on myself. You see, we have some seriously sweet teeth in this home and while for the most part we steer clear of cane sugar, there are still sugars in our diet.

I loved the visual aspect of this book, not just lines and lines of words, but with lots of diagrams, cute characters, quotes and references to others who have been-there-and-done-that. It's a book for visual people who see life in pictures, like I do. And it's also great for kids as they can look at the pictures while you read.

After one chapter, I had to read another and another about his big sugar experiment, because he was not trying to cut out sugar but rather ADD it into his diet. How much? Loads! 40 teaspoons a day which is the national average per person in Australia. His twist was that it needed to come from "healthy" sources.

This was the angle I didn't expect. 

So this fellow Damon is a healthy guy, reformed by his girlfriend a couple of years back. He was eating what we call healthy fats in meats, avo, nuts and oils. These had to go for his experiment. His diet would now be what many, and even I at one time, call health foods. For 60 days he left behind those good things and entered into the "health" world of low fat food, fresh fruit, juices and carbohydrates. He had medical checks at the start, during and at the end to monitor his progress from being very healthy (by medical standards) to the unhealthy state he found himself - and his liver - in at the end of the 60 days.

It was his first breakfast that got me hooked on the book: "balanced" cereal, apple juice, low fat yoghurt. This gave him 20 teaspoons of sugar at one meal and not a bit of it came from the sugar bowl and it was all labelled as healthy.

This got me thinking...and reading labels in my pantry the next morning. I used to be a good label reader and then have become quite blasé about it all thinking that I know my way around foods now. I'm a big girl now, right?

In my pantry I found at least 10 products with "hidden" sugar in them. Only noticeable when you read the labels. Rice milk powder, which we use with our oats, has sugar. Big blow here. Nut butters too...some sauces we use...and more.

Then moving on in the book he deals with carbohydrates and how they too affect our bodies as sugar does when they enter the blood stream. Carbohydrates (including white bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, crackers, muffins, cakes, pies, pizza, beer) all cause insulin levels to spike quickly. This means that a crash on the other side is unavoidable and then the cravings for something (like carbs) hit as your body doesn't have the energy it needs.

The last whammy he slaps the reader with is fruit. In our case - fruit and veggie juices. There is many a day when I want to skip a meal for one or another reason and will just juice up some veggies and fruits. This is a problem for the body as there is no fibre to aid slow release of energy into the bloodstream and can also cause spikes and lows in the blood sugar levels. So this is a conundrum for me...when we did our 28 day juice detox last year I felt amazing! It's not that we ever planned on never chewing food again, but we all wanted to shed some kgs, detox our body and just lighten the food load a bit. At the end of the 28 days I felt strong and besides for some hunger at about 4pm each day I felt more even in my blood sugar. We did have lots of avocado though and perhaps the fats and fibre in that helped stabilise everything???

I suppose I could have closed the book at the end, turned off my light and slept soundly. I mean I can count all the right things we do on my fingers...but that's not me. I have had his experiment going around and around in my head for weeks now and thinking about what this means for my family.

In particular what other sweet things am I willing to cut out - how radical will we go? Honey...coconut blossom sugar....spelt bread...sweet potatoes...these are all on our menu. According to the science, they should go too.

Well, at the end of the record playing in my head I have decided on a few things we can do to reduce the hidden sugars...

1. Make more time to shop so that I can check labels again for sugars. Things to look at carefully are the pseudonyms for sugar: evaporated cane juice, raw organic cane sugar, fruit juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, cane syrup, beet sugar, caster sugar, crystalline fructose, blackstrap molasses,  grape sugar, invert sugar, fruit juice, maple syrup.

2. Go back to meal planning. When you know what to buy for good old nourishing food and have a list it saves money, time and is better for your health.

3. Stock up on healthy snacks for the every hungry kids in this house. Being on school break now gives me a chance to think a bit more about this and search out and try some recipes which can fill up the "cookie" jar and the fridge with grab-able food on the go.

So that's really it. A lot of the stuff in his book I knew and we have been on a pretty good food path for a while, but there is always room for improvement.

Have you read this book? What are your thoughts?

Our principles of healthy eating

Recently my daughter has had a health awakening! Sounds spectacular but you know what its like with kids - you feed them the right things, tell them to exercise, get them in the garden, talk about petroleum based products etc but its always you as the driving force.

They still eat sweets and chips by choice, want the hair stuff that makes their hair look like the Pantene ad and add it to the shopping trolley when you are not looking! But somewhere along the line all my modelling has lit a fire in my eldest and it's burning hotter than mine ever did!

So The Healthy Capetonian was born where she documents where she is eating with restaurant reviews of healthy eating spots. She also reviews beauty products and shares her spectacular recipes for smoothie bowls and other scrumptious breakfasts. And exercise...well let me say it's not for the feint hearted!

Delicious smoothie bowls

But her awakening has made me think again about healthy eating. It's not like we slid back into bad habits - we have been eating pretty clean for 12 years now, but I believe that as you receive new revelation you need to move forward. And of course there are always those days weeks when you find yourself not making the best food choices.

So the "Healthy One" and I were chatting the other day about how I cannot make expensive smoothie bowls for everyone in the family - just way to expensive with the superfood powders and berries - but there are some things that we can do to improve the nutrition factors in or home that don't cost a lot but will fill tummies and boost immune systems and over all health.

We have had forays into a 28 day long juice diet and months with Paleo eating, but we always return to the 5 food groups as this makes sense to our family, lifestyle and budget. We will always choose a low or healthy carb option however, as middle age spread :) and Superman's Type 2 Diabetes - which I don't think he suffers from any longer, but if we don't watch out it could be an issue again - means we need to watch the carbohydrate space. However for the rest of it, we do not have major health problems related to food so are pretty comfortable with our basic meals.

Why the 5 basic food groups? No matter what Tim Noakes or Mr William Banting says I find that we have much better blood sugar levels with a bit of carb, protein and veg with each meal. I did loose weight eating Paleo style for about 8 months last year (2014). I also lost a nice chunk of weight before our October trip to the UK on the 28 day juice diet and we still try to incorporate juicing into our eating plan. But neither of these have been sustainable over the long run. (No, no, never fear - not trying to live on juice - just replacing a meal with a juice each day.)

Homegrown carrots

In a world of fad diets and super foods and a whole lot of opinions on how to eat, the old fashioned food pyramid is not as sexy as something new, but it's where we always end up. We apply our "rule" to it though in that we eat food in its most simple form, closest to its original state and always choosing organic as far as possible.

So not because I am a health guru, nor because I have any particular agenda, but just because I feel like scribbling down our food principles and by way of that, sharing them with you.

So here are our basic principles:

Carbohydrates (don't read bread!)

Bread is only one kind of carb, which we tend to eat only once or twice a week,but when we do eat bread we generally mill our own whole spelt grains (or Kamut) but if the mood takes us we also have refined spelt that gives a decent "white loaf". Other carbs we love are pasta...but we eat this only once a week and use gluten free for my son and normal for us. I used to love making my own pasta but this tradition has fallen by the wayside, sadly. Good for the waistline, not for the taste buds.

Everyone needs carbs and the good ones are found in vegetables in their simple understated way. We have swapped out white potatoes for the most part for sweet potatoes as they have a much higher fibre content and are very versatile. We love having these roasted with butter, a simple chicken thigh dish and big salad for supper. Doesn't get better than this!

Soups are a big thing here and any of the compact starchy vegetables are great for soups. Butternut soup is a quick easy favourite lunch for most of us. As far as I can I try to eat seasonal foods in particular corn and only if I can find it as organic. We do eat polenta, barley, millet, rice and bulgar wheat which we get from Nature's Choice. I am looking into buying these in bulk from an organic food company, but will have to phase that in as its pretty pricey to buy 20kgs of organic grains.

Spelt bread dough on the rise

Protein

Let me put this right out here - we don't eat dried beans as a protein. They simple do not agree with our family's guts! I will add beans here and there to recipes when I make Mexican food, but as an addition too, not as a meal. So our protein comes mainly in the form of organic lamb, beef, chicken, pork, eggs and recently a bit of goat!

Again, while we love stews and curries, my daughter has been encouraging us to eat "cleaner" with less sauces. Even then my curries are made from scratch using my own herb and spice mixes, homemade beef or chicken stock and vegetables.

My two elder children run a free range meat supply company called Funky Chickens and the chicken, pork, eggs and goat that they sell is organic, although not certified, and the beef  and lamb is free range. I get my beef and lamb from elsewhere which is organic and pasture fed.

We tend to still be big on the animal protein side and lower on the carbohydrates, so I am quite pointed in making sure that our protein is of the best we can get. If I did have a source of organic animal protein, I think I would come a bit unglued...but we would not eat beans to make up the protein portion.

Fruit and Vegetables

This is the tougher area for me to remain organic as for the last year or two I have had to supplement heavily as I didn't have the ability to grow as much as we needed. I think that my new compact planting idea will give us higher yields. But until then we buy from Woolies on their bulk specials, or from PnP, or if I am the Earth Fair market I will support Bees in Boots.

We will never be able to grow our own organic fruit as our plot is too small (and I have one son who can finish a bag of apples in 2 days!). What we do grow we eat, at the moment it is strawberries, granadillas and lemons. We do have two apple trees, two orange trees, two fig trees and different berry plants, but as yet have had no fruit from them.

On the pavement I have planted two Elder Trees which will provide some amazing products when they are grown. And while most wouldn't classify it as a fruit, we have two avocado trees which began producing this year. Over time I hope to explore how to grow more berries and fruit in our small space and am thinking about growing some fruit trees espalier as we have loads of wall space...but we will see.

Beautiful homegrown leeks

Dairy produce

Mmmmh, I know about the  milk debate and as I had two children who were lactose intolerant as babes we are not huge milk drinkers. We use milk in coffee and tea and in cooking if needed however we are yoghurt eaters. Some more than others. Could we do without milk and its products, I think so, however so far there is no real need to.

My elder daughter makes the most delicious breakfast porridge and uses rice milk powder for that, and then we read the label and found that its packed with hidden sugars. Tossing up the two (milk vs. rice milk) I think that buying whole organic milk for tea and coffee and cooking is probably the lesser of two evils.

We do use cheese, but mostly I prefer to use Mysthills' butter and cheese as their dairy herd is free range. Superman prefer's Woolies cheddar, which has colorants in it. But this is used so seldom that I figure the 80/20 rule applies...yes?

Fats & sugars

The debates rage on and on and on about this. Should we be getting our fats from animal source...or from nuts, avo's and oils...or from both?

We do the both option. I don't buy lean meat, skimmed milk or low fat cheeses and yoghurt. But we also eat loads of avocados, a variety of nuts and use cold pressed oils.

Coconut oil, which has been touted as the best oil to use, is now coming under scrutiny by many health pros as they question whether it is truly the miracle food it was made out to be. Personally I use it to make soap and for rough elbows :) My daughter uses it in her smoothie bowls and porridge recipes. Granted it gives the meals a thick luxurious texture and gentle flavour, but as I am undecided about it I keep it for external preparations for now.

Porridge with coconut blossom sugar and preserved peaches

With regards to sugar, as I look back over the years, this has been our weakness. We have loved puddings, cakes, cookies and treats. We have had too much sugar in our diets. About 3 months ago we replaced sugar with coconut blossom sugar when we learned about it from a friend. We use this in all our beverages and baking. There are a few times when the brown colour of it will affect the end product so we do use organic sugar, but very seldom. There is still debate raging on about the health claims of coconut blossom sugar, so my goal is to move more and more towards raw organic honey for sweetness. I do not like xylitol or stevia so probably won't ever switch to those "healthier" sweeteners, which also have their fair share of criticisms to deal with.

So that's our story with food right now. What are your healthy eating guidelines?

Just bluffing...

Today is the second day of the most gorgeous weather. The temperature is just right for me, the sun is shining and there is a promise of gardening in my thinking. But I know the weather is just bluffing and within days we will be back to the Cape winter.

That's ok because each season has its own blessings. For me winter is about fires, hot drinks, board games, books, early bed times and the rain watering my garden. Maybe you notice that I didn't write comfort food...thats because we aren't eating any at the moment. We decided (literally overnight) to do a 28 day juice fast after watching Super Juice Me two weeks ago. We are into our 3rd week. The first week we only had fruit and vegetable juices. The second week was cold and we couldn't face cold juice in the evening so we ate protein and vegetables at night. This week we are back to juice again. I hope the weather stays warm so that we don't crave the hot foods.

It has been a good thing for my reluctant vegetable eaters as they have had more minerals and vitamins flooding their systems than before. The younger 3 have made other healthy snacks and meals if they were hungry but they are getting the juices in and that's great!

I am looking forward to cooking again, it's been the hardest thing on this detox. I have also missed sitting around the dinner table with my family. That has always been a highlight of our day when we can sit and chat and savour the meal together. When you have a glass of juice you tend to stand and glug rather than sit and savour.

Today I popped out into the garden and took some photos of whats growing around here...

Borage all over the garden - soon its flowers will attract the bees

Broad beans in all their glory!

Globe Artichoke - we have 5 plants and can't wait to eat their offerings

Gorgeous lemons - I see an aphid cleaning needs to be done soon

Oreganum spreading

Peas, loads of peas

Just one bed of potatoes this year for treats

How's your garden coming along?

My big fat pantry challenge

Every now and again I have to stop buying groceries and use up what I have and I have decided that now is as good a time as any.

Pantry beginnings

I consider my freezer, fridge, garden and physical pantry all part of this challenge. I didn't have a pantry until August last year, before that my groceries were in a normal cupboard. When we did our renovations we decided on taking a small awkward passage way and turning it into a pantry and a "cloakroom" where we keep sports equipment, homeschool resources, sewing and scrapbooking stuff. These two rooms are separate from one another but used up this dead space so well.

My pantry is a real pleasure...except when it comes to keeping it tidy. Superman says "entropy" (movement towards degradation!) is something that takes place all the time in the universe, so I will spend each holiday giving a cupboard a good cleaning and sorting out, only to find out that within a week stuff is in the wrong place, mixed up, untidy and messy...almost as if it happened on its own :(

Trying to keep order

So yesterday I got stuck into the pantry for a deep clean. Every basket was unpacked, cleaned and repacked in an orderly fashion, shelves wiped down, jars and plastics without lids sent to recycling, and lids without jars too!

I also check expiry dates on whatever I put back into the pantry and fridge. If you keep medicines in your fridge, now is a good time to check those too.

This left me with a clear idea of what I have as basic ingredients with which to create meals.

The garden has some peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce and herbs for me at the moment. Then this morning my freezer was subjected to a stock take.

Tidy pantry

My freezer holds grass fed boerewors, mince, pork hocks, chicken necks (for stock), chicken livers, raw cat and dog food.

My fridge holds eggs, cheese, milk and some odds.

I am truly glad we are having a break from schooling at the moment so that I can be creative with our meals. When I am doing a pantry challenge like this (generally not more than twice a year) I do not plan meals...I take each day as it comes. I figure that besides for milk we should be eating quite well for the next few weeks.

Last night I made a delicious lamb and lentil pie with left over roast leg of lamb. On the side were the last peas and cabbage.

This morning for breakfast was almond and banana pancakes with yoghurt and honey and bacon.

Lunch was sweet potato and sweet pepper soup.

Tonight will be chilli con carne meatballs on bulgar wheat...nom nom, can't wait! Oh...and a peach almond crumble with homemade custard. (We have guests coming!)

Are you up for a pantry challenge?

Slow Living Month 5 - May

Winter has set in with the cold temperatures and wild storms. I am always in two minds about the rain…I love it for my garden, our rivers and streams but it is inconvenient unless bundled up inside next to a warm fire. But all seasons have the good and bad things. Another good thing about winter is warm comfort food – pies, soups, stews. Nom. 

Here is the summary of our month via Christine at Slow Living Essentials

Nourish

Superb roast pork shoulder - made 5 meals!

I wrote about our current eating style here. Enjoying pasture reared chicken, lamb and pork roasts and then having two or three meals made from the leftovers is a real winner for me.

We are enjoying “spring” onions and broccoli from the garden and we have loads of lettuce still that no one really wants to eat when its cold, but we do. We also have herbs – thyme, rosemary, basil (coming to an end), parsley and coriander – to use to flavor our meals. 

Prepare

Nothing to prepare at the moment, but we are enjoying the pickles and jams we prepared in summer. I have just harvested the last of the green tomatoes and plan to make a green tomato relish very soon.

Reduce

A long overdue job was tackled by my husband and a friend, which pleased me no end. They sorted out our backyard workshop area. There was piles of wooden stakes, gardening equipment, machinery and more cluttering up this area. Desmond who was working with Superman rigged up a wood holder from existing wood that we had. Now the wood that we use for all sorts of things found a permanent holding place until we are ready to use it.

Green

We very soon needed the wood as Sam who works in my garden on Fridays saw that the edging around our fig tree and around our pond had rotted. He used some of the wood we had to make a lovely new edging.

Grow

We sowed the following seeds in newspaper pots: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, onions and spinach. Unfortunately some snails or slugs got to most of them before I could plant them and I have 1/3 left. We will have to try again.

Potatoes were planted out and broad beans and peas sown into beds. Last year I planted three beds of broad beans and my children were not happy campers when they appeared on their plates night after night, so this time it’s just one bed now and another later in winter. I will do another bed of peas and potatoes then too once we have eaten our way through what is waiting for harvesting.

Create

I always feel a bit down in this space. I used to love to knit back in 2009 but honestly it does not rank highly, neither does sewing or anything artsy. I do have an appointment with a scrapbook as each year that one of my children turn 13 I give them a Creative Memories scrapbook covering their 13 years when we do their blessing. So this has to start happening NOW as I have less than a year to complete it.

I love looking at how my children have grown and matured and remember with deep weepy fondness those baby years.

Discover

Can’t believe I am writing “nothing” here as I am sure I must have discovered something….mmmh!

Enhance

Buster - sunning it up on his window seat

Our ongoing project is working with Marie who lives with the Franskraal Ferals and this month we were doubly blessed to be able to pay for 100kg of dry food via donations and we received a donation of 2.6 tonnes of canned pilchards for them. Yes, you did read TONNES! It is so wonderful to be on the receiving end of this as I have always been one to give to worthwhile charities and help the poor in their need. It's great to see others care as much.

Enjoy ~ 10 things that I have enjoyed in no particular order:

~Connecting with long “lost” friends on Facebook

~Seeing my children’s business take on a new market & growth

~Kitty cuddles

~My son’s growing cooking skills

~Buster, the rescued feral, becoming more of a house cat

~Hot brownies from the oven

~Walks with friends in the forest and rekindling friendships

~Warm cuddly chats with my children

~Sunday swimming at the gym with my Superman and the odd brunch out thereafter.

~Booking my plane ticket to the UK for my two daughters and I to visit my beloved Sister. So happy!

 How was your month?

Save with Jamie – Book Review

 I am a fan of Jamie Oliver. I think it was more than 10yrs ago when I picked up a book of his at a friends home and read it in bed at night. Superman and I have also watched a few of his TV series, when I was still watching TV that is. And every now and again when I feel like it I will watch something of his on Youtube.

That was how I found his series on saving money with food without compromising on taste and health. (Go to Youtube and key in “save with Jamie” for a whole range of saving tips.) I only had to watch a few of his videos where he cooks the meals from his book by the same title: Save With Jamie, to know that it was a book I wanted in my collection.

Having used the book now for about 6 months I feel that it brings such enrichment to my home that I have to encourage others to add it to your shelf.

The top eight reasons I love this book:

Meat!

We have slowly moved to a low carb diet since 2009 when Superman was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I struggled for a long time to give up baked treats and puddings as I love/d baking. There is also something so satisfying about a big bowl of pasta or creamy mashed potatoes. It’s not that we never eat these foods, but they are rather eaten rarely.

Giving recipes based around cheaper cuts of meat like pork shoulder and beef brisket and showing how to cook them for maximum taste and tenderness can help any other omnivore to save a little on what is always the most expensive item in a food budget.

Leftovers!

The way we have worked with this book is that either on a Sunday or Monday evening we make a big roast – 2 chickens or 1 large shoulder of lamb or pork or a beef brisket – and we enjoy that with all the trimmings. For the chickens we will eat the dark meat and save the breast meat for a meal through the week and the carcass for stock. For the lamb, beef and pork, we will save half the meat for a meal later on in the week.

For instance, on Monday my son made a gorgeous roast lamb with savoy cabbage, peas and roast potatoes. Half the lamb was saved and used in Jamie’s biryani recipe on Tuesday, which was stupendous. The winner meal so far is left over beef brisket in Korean stir-fry. Nom Nom Nom!

Stocks & dripping!

Obviously these roasts have bones left behind and he encourages the home cook to make stock and use it in later recipes and soups. Always a high scorer on the nutrition scale! Dripping is also saved and used to add extra flavor to risotto, soups, gravy and stir fry.

Buying and storing bulk!

At the beginning of the book (like most of his later ones) he has a pantry and stock list. These things may seem pricey to buy up front (sesame oil etc) but you use so little of it that they last a long time. You can also spread the pantry stocking over a few grocery shops so that the first is not overwhelming on your wallet. His freezer tips are also a winner and as he rightly points out, buying frozen veg (if you don’t grow and freeze your own) is often cheaper and has more nutrients than 5-day-old grocery store fresh veg.

“Old” fashioned tips

Truly the age of our grandmothers is coming back when it comes to thrifty food. Waste not want not is a big thing in this recipe book. How to use up sagging veg in pickles, soups and stocks…how to freeze chillies and herbs…why dripping is a delicacy and needs to be saved…so much more!

He also intersperses shopping tips and why supporting the little butcher or fishmonger shop or the local farmers and markets is a wiser choice than the big chain stores.

Saving money!

This is not a book on how to use beans for protein. This is whole foods, across all the food groups but how to do it frugally and without waste. So if you are a vegetarian or vegan this book is not for you and if you are not prepared to rethink how you shop and cook, then skip this one. However if you are like us that enjoy food, love making it, smelling it cooking and try to do it in the most ethical and organic way, then give it a go.

Time saving – sort of!

Sort of, because some of the meals take long slow roasts in the oven but the finishing off is quick and also as he uses all the leftovers, you can do one big meal on an evening when you have more time and then have 2 quick meals from left overs on other nights of the week.

The nom-nom-nom factor

A friend once told me I am obsessed with food…and I am. Not any food though – good food, tasty food, food that makes my family smile, food that I can serve to dinner guests, food that’s funky for my younger fussy eater, food made from scratch and leaves my loved ones and I saying that was a good meal.

We have a saying in our kitchen, when I am making a recipe that asks me to do something that raises my eyebrows (like making a rice pie crust!!!): “Don’t argue with Jamie”. To date there has not been one recipe in this book we do not like, even though we are half way through testing them.

So if you are feeling a little despondent or unenthused with your culinary skills at the moment, I encourage you to give this book a try! And if you need to see a meal take a look at this favourite of ours

Happy cooking! Oh and if you are a Cape Town reader and you are looking for high quality affordable organic meat, take a look at my elder children's business Funky Chickens

Easy foundations for nutritious meals

When I started turning my attention to real nutritious whole food my youngest was still in utero. He is now 12 years old. But as each year passes I add a bit more to my repertoire.

Our first moves were from white shop bought bread to whole wheat bread then to making our own whole wheat bread then onto buying the grains and grinding them and making our bread. It was a process of good-better-best. The goal was to always be growing and learning how to be wiser stewards of our bodies.

It can be so overwhelming when starting to switch onto whole foods and real ingredients that when we think we have to do it all at the beginning we give up before even taking one baby step.

My advice is always to just make one change and when that change for the better is part of your routine, add another and then keep going. With that in mind, one of the easiest things you can do is make these 5 easy foundational parts of most recipes and keep them in your fridge or freezer until you need them.

Meat stocks

Chicken, beef and lamb stocks can be made and frozen in Ziploc bags or plastic containers. We use loads of chicken stock so I just keep 3x 1 liter jars in the fridge all the time. We eat roast chicken once a week (I roast 2 and we have leftovers for salads, soups and sandwiches) the next day. I keep all the bones, cartilage and skin to make stock. If I debone a chicken (it’s cheaper than buying mixed portions) I also keep the carcass for stock.

I get beef and lamb bones from the organic farmer who supplies my children’s business with their products and make stock from those.

Meat stock recipes here. (Lamb and beef are done the same)

Vegetable stock 

For vegetable stock, I will save carrot peels, celery bits, onion bits and any other vegetable offcuts every now and again for vegetable stock. They can be frozen in a container until you have enough unless you are doing a big cook up then use them fresh.

Uses for your stocks:

Stews

Soups 

Spaghetti and lasagna mince

Risotto

Pasta

Rice

Tomato and vegetable sauce

This is a much quicker but still tasty way to have tomato sauce on hand for recipes. It is much more nutritious than cans of tomatoes.

Obviously its great if you have a glut of homegrown organic tomatoes, but any tomatoes can do great things in this sauce.

2kg tomatoes quatered

2 bulbs of garlic, peeled

3 large carrots, grated

1 large bunch of celery, chopped

A selection of herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano) 

Wash and prepare the vegetables. Add to a large pot with a drizzle of olive oil. Bring up to a boil while stirring. Reduce the temperature and let it bubble away for an hour until soft.

Add 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Blend up with a stick blender and once cooled store in jars in the fridge or freeze in containers or bags.

Uses for your tomato sauce:

Soups

Stews

Pasta

Bolognaise Sauce

Lasagna

Ratatouille

Bonus idea…

Have you heard about Artisan Bread in 5minutes a day? It was the rage about 3 years ago. It’s a great way to make your own bread a couple of days a week.