Eight Acres

When the cabinet maker asked me where we wanted the microwave in the new kitchen I had a mental-blank.  I couldn't think where to put it and when I really thought about it, I didn't actually want a microwave.  We did still own one at that stage, but we hardly used it.  I find them kind of ugly and I don't completely trust them.  We haven't had a microwave in the new kitchen since we moved in Easter, and I really don't miss it. There may or may not be reasons to not eat microwaved food, but personally I don't like the taste of it and I don't like the look the microwave, so I'm happy not to have one in my kitchen.  When I considered whether to include a microwave in the new kitchen, I could only come up with three things: Defrosting meat Heating leftovers Heating wheat packs More suggestions here if you have other uses for your microwave. Defrosting meat without a microwave This one is pretty easy.  If you want a roast or a large chu...

More lunches to share with you.  We always cook in bulk in the weekend and make all our lunches for the following week.  These are ideas for lunch or just bulk cooking.  You can find more recipes in my  January post ,  February post  and March post. I also share them on  Instagram  each Sunday or Monday night ( you will also see them on the Facebook page ).  I hope these posts are inspiring you to cook from scratch and take your own lunch to work - both to save money and eat better. I'm not great at following recipes, and I'm also not good at writing them, because I tend to just use up what we have in the fridge/pantry/garden, things that are on special or we've been given at our local produce share.  I'll tell you what I made, but I'm not saying you should follow exactly, just use it as a rough guide and use up whatever you have handy too. Week 1: Beef stir fry There was a pack of rump in the freezer, so perfect for a stir f...

This is my third post sharing our lunch recipes (you don't have to use them for lunch, they are just recipes that are easy to cook in bulk).  You can find more recipes in my  January post  and my February post . I also share them on  Instagram  each Sunday night ( you will also see them on the Facebook page ).  And I'll post the recipes at the end of the month.  I hope these posts are inspiring you to cook from scratch and take your own lunch to work - both to save money and eat better.  I haven't had any comments so far, so please let me know if you find these posts useful! I'm not great at following recipes, and I'm also not good at writing them, because I tend to just use up what we have in the fridge/pantry/garden, things that are on special or we've been given at our local produce share.  I'll tell you what I made, but I'm not saying you should follow exactly, just use it as a rough guide and use up whatever you have handy too. ...

Here's an old post from July 2011 that I thought you might enjoy reading again :) Since we have started producing our own veges, eggs, beef and chicken meat I have noticed that we get used to making our own and have been reluctant to buy these items when our own production levels are low.  This means we usually have either too much or not enough of some things, but its just become a way of life for us.  Sometimes if we don't have any of a particular food, we just go without, but we don't even think about it now. When we are milking our cows, we usually have too much milk at first, which is lovely, because I get to try making cheese without worrying too much if the end result is a disaster!  The other week I made feta, too much feta, which neither of us particularly like (it was just an easy cheese to try) so I started looking for recipes to use it up.  I found this lovely recipe  for chicken meatballs with feta in the middle.  This would use up ...

We take our own lunch to work every day because the only other option is the work canteen which is a) expensive and b) junk.  We usually cook up a big batch of something like a casserole, stir fry, curry or roast, and make up individual servings to take to work each day (in glass containers).  We eat the same lunch every day all week, and something different for dinner.  This doesn't bother me, but you might prefer to freeze some of the portions so you can mix it up. I decided this year to share photos and recipes from our lunches so that you might be inspired to pack your own lunch too.  Here's what we took for lunch in January.  I also share them on Instagram  each Sunday night ( you will also see them on the Facebook page ).  And I'll post the recipes at the end of the month.  I'm not great at following recipes, and I'm also not good at writing them, because I tend to just use up what we have in the fridge/pantry/garden, things that...

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about woodstoves, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Did you know what you can get woodstoves that are designed for both heating your house and cooking?  We've owned two woodstoves now, both with ovens under the fire box for cooking.  I hardly ever use our electric oven in winter (and in summer we tend to use the BBQ or the slow cooker because its too hot in the house).  Cooking in a woodstove is easy and convenient.  If you are considering installing a woodstove for heating, you should consider the cooking option too, as it doesn't cost much more and you will be able to cook all your meals for free while your heating the house anyway. The kelpies enjoying the heat from the woodfire The first woodstove that we tried was a  Nectre Bakers Oven .  It was a lovely little oven, that heated up quickly.  Bu...

Celery is one vegetable that I never used to like before I grew it myself.  Silverbeet is the other one.  Celery from the supermarket is usually stringy and tasteless, and depending how old it is, may also be a bit limp.  Homegrown celery is crunchy and tasty.  Here's how I grow and use celery. How to grow celery I have had no luck growing celery from seed that I planted, and resorted to buying seedlings, however, celery that then went to seed seems to have now produced more celery seedlings.  I still don't know how to get celery seeds to germinate, so if you're new to gardening I recommend buying seedlings to avoid disappointment.  Celery needs plenty of moisture and I have observed that it will not grow well when we get very hot and dry conditions.  It does grow through winter here though (surviving light frosts) and thrives any time we have warm and wet conditions.  If you keep it growing long enough it will eventually go to seed and die...

In Joanna Blythman's book "Swallow This", the author has somehow gained access to the food industry's inner circle.  She attends trade shows and obtains information about the hidden ingredients in processed food that you will find shocking.  The food industry is onto us consumers, they know that we are reading labels and avoiding weird ingredients and anything with a number, so their latest technique is "clean labels".  Complex and unnatural ingredients are shown on clean labels with familiar or safe sounding names, such as "yeast extract" or "modified starch" or "beetroot extract", this means its getting even harder to read processed food labels and avoid eating artificial ingredients. I've taken key points from each chapter in the book, however there is so much detail, if you are interested in this subject I recommend you read the book yourself.  It is written from a UK and EU perspective, I can only imagine tha...

Occasionally I imagine what would happen if Pete and I ended up on one of those reality TV cooking shows where you have to prepare a meal in your own home as a couple.  The first part of the show usually involves the couple rushing around the supermarket buying ingredients.  I wonder what they would think when most of our ingredients came from the garden or the freezer (no rushing required), would we be disqualified because we don't need to buy much to create a wonderful meal? "shopping" for ingredients Dan Barber's book  The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food  is about creating a sustainable meal.  His first plate was the conventional meat and three vege, his second plate was organic meat and three vege, but the third plate (the sustainable one) was a steak made from carrot, with a beef sauce, he goes on to develop this concept into an entire meal of plates.  You would think that a chef with a nose-to-tail farm-based restaurant wouldn't ...

I feel like I am the LAST person to read Michael Pollan's 2006 book  The Omnivore's Dilemma .  It has been mentioned on so many blogs as an influence over the way people eat and how they understand food production, when I saw it at the library I thought it was time I read it too.  I'm so glad I did!  I think I would enjoy ANYTHING that Michael Pollan wrote.  He really has a wonderful way with words, sometimes I read a sentence twice just to try to absorb some of that ability for myself.  Even better, the topic is something that interests me immensely.  The omnivore's dilemma: What should we have for dinner?  As an omnivore, we CAN eat nearly anything, but what SHOULD we eat? Michael attempts to answer this question by tracing four meals from their origins to the table.  The first meal is monoculture corn, through to feed-lot beef, in a burger containing corn derivatives such as high-fructose corn syrup, eaten in a car running on ethano...

As I've lately been thinking about what I eat and about real food for humans , naturally the next question was how to feed real food to Taz, and what is real food for dogs? Taz pondering the question of real food for dogs I have gradually been paying more attention to the ingredients in dog food over the last few years.  We used to buy the big cans of dog food when they were on special at the supermarket and that's all Cheryl ate until I read Pat Coleby's "Natural Pet Care ", which recommended a plain kibble, with minimum additives.  I couldn't find the particular one that she mentioned, but I did switch Cheryl and Chime to a plain kibble.  I got the "old fat dog" version because they were both a little overweight.  Strangely they never lost any weight on this high carb, low fat diet (I can't believe I didn't work that one out earlier). When we got puppy Taz, she ate puppy nuts (as Pete calls dog kibble) for her first 12 months and t...