Belinda Moore

Last week’s menu was a bit mixed up. We ended up staying home on New Year’s Eve and ate sweet & sour fish and rice instead of going to a BBQ. On Friday night we didn’t want rice again so ate some fresh local baby potatoes which needed eating. So we had some jacket potatoes with our black beans and cheese on top, with a side salad. Our weekend meals were swapped over to suit available time.

Again, we had no food deliveries or bulk purchases, just a top-up at the local independent supermarket. The garden’s still supplying plenty of greens, pumpkins and more. The hens have actually been laying a lot, so we have a good surplus of eggs for the first time in awhile.

I made a huge batch of pasta sauce for the freezer this week, using plenty of home grown produce and herbs. I tidied up the freezer and intend to fill it, in preparation for when we go away and leave The Dad to fend for himself in February.

Nice and simple this week. Trying to use up what we have and save a bit of money along the way. I’m following the Grocery Challenge on Simple Savings for accountability!

Monday: Roast kipfler potatoes & sweet potato, salad, boiled eggs
Tuesday: Vegetable Curry (slow cooker - freeze extra) & rice & yoghurt
Wednesday: Tuna Patties & salad
Thursday: Pizzas
Friday: Pasta
Saturday: Quiche & salad
Sunday: Italian lentils, rice and steamed green vegetables

For hundreds of great menus every week, check out orgjunkie.com!

Today I wrote about sustainable communities on the Simple, Green, Frugal, Co-op Blog. Check it out here.

I’ve decided to take up Melinda’s Challenge! So for every purchase in 2009 I’ll hopefully be asking myself :

1. Do You Really Need It?
If you do…
2. Buy it Locally.
3. Buy it Fair Trade.
4. Buy it Green.
5. Buy it To Last.

In the hope that this doesn’t get lost amongst my varied personal goals for 2009, I aim to post regular updates on my Sustainable Shopping Habits. I wish you all the best for your hopes and dreams for the year ahead too!

I always wonder, when typing the titles of these updates, if I’m just a month ahead of myself? As of course this is the news of December 2008…

AT HOME: The general busyness of the holiday season hasn’t been too bad. It’s nice to go out and have guests because it’s summer holiday time and all the children’s activities are on hold until February. We’ve enjoyed BBQs, a kebab night for my friend’s birthday, a yoga workshop (just me, bliss), work Christmas party, a Christmas party in our little villiage, the obligatory pre-Christmas shopping trip, a soiree, the Twilight movie (for Brit) and more…

AT WORK: I received copies of Warm Earth and Natural Life this past week, with my articles in them. Both magazines are packed with interesting content this time. Nice to have some quality summer reading material!

Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op has had a bit of a make-over recently, and we have a grueling schedule for 2009 (not really grueling, just more organised!)

My humble Garden Blog has also undergone a bit of a make-over too, must be that time of year!

Spiral Garden was so busy in December. Blessings to all of my lovely customers for their orders, kind wishes and encouragement. Still plenty of stock of most items available, with more coming in January - both brand new products and all the favourites too.

After the Christmas parties, it’s been a very quiet time for my volunteer work. It’s good to have a break and reflect.

ON THE FARM: Plenty of rain in December saw the grass, trees and gardens growing wildly. It’s really a case of ‘taming the jungle’ out there rather than making much progress.

On Christmas Day we planted a couple of trees - a mulberry (I grew from a cutting), and a cumquat, and we transplanted tropical plum, as well as a variety of cane or bamboo. We’re working on an area where we’ll plant about forty more trees in January, as well as a hedge of pigeon pea for the animals, and a couple more mulberries dotted about the house paddock.

Recent harvests have been a pile of pumpkins, two roosters, plenty of eggs, beans, capsicums, tomatoes, spinach (of varying kinds), passionfruit, chokos, herbs and a few salad greens, sprouts in the kitchen and macadamia nuts (though it isn’t the right season, they’ve come down in storms).

All of the animals are doing really well, and still more chicks are hatching. Hopefully these are the last ones for awhile as we’re going away soon and they do require a bit of special care and attention for the first month at least. Within the next month I’m hoping that the ones raised to sell as point-of-lay hens will be ready to relocate to their new homes.

HOME ED.: During January, I’ll be doing a lot of planning (and book buying!) while the kids work on their usual books from time to time. We’ll be away for half of February, then back into the swing of routines and activities after the trip.

All the best to you and yours for 2009!

I took this recipe and adjusted it. I adjusted it a bit much and we have leftovers, which we’ll have as a rice bake for lunch tomorrow. The amounts below are for 12 serves of risotto, with side vegetables.

1 whole small Jap pumpkin (homegrown), cubed in 2cm pieces
1 medium brown onion, diced
2L+ boiling water with 1.5 tblspn Massell Chicken-style stock powder
4 cups white rice
1/2 tsp dried Italian herbs (too rainy to get to the garden!)
Dice onion and pumpkin, saute in a large, heavy-based pot in a little olive oil until golden and softening. Add the rice and stir for approximately 1 minute. Add about 1L of the water with stock powder added. Stir until absorbed.

Add remaining water and half-cover pot over medium heat so rice absorbs water, stirring often. Have extra water at hand to keep risotto moist and stop it sticking to the base of the pot.

When risotto is soft and creamy, add some freshly ground pepper.

Serve with some steamed green vegies and grated cheese. Mmmmmmmmm comfort food!

Things went quite well last week, considering what a crazy time the holidays can be. We did substitute Sunday’s pasta bake for a roasted rooster from our farm, with roast pumpkin and steamed veg on the side.

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For Libby, here’s my Asian Omelette instructions (not really a recipe!), inspired by a recipe on Simple Savings. This was enough for the seven of us (hubby was at work)…

5 cakes of plain two-minute-style noodles
6 eggs (homegrown for us)
garam marsala, chili or preferred seasoning
a little Massel chicken-style stock powder

Cook noodles as per packet directions. Drain and rinse with cold water. Beat eggs with spices and stock powder. Add noodles to egg mix and combine.

Heat a little oil in a heavy-based frypan. Add enough of the mix to cover the base of the pan. As it’s frying, push around the edges so a nice firm ‘cake’ is forming. Once the cake is golden on the bottom, fold in half, omelette-style. Fry a little longer, then flip to fry the other side if you’re not sure it’s done through…

Remove from pan and continue until all the mix is done.

We cut our omlettes in half as we used a large cast iron frypan. We served them with some plain boiled basmati rice and frozen peas, tamari and some chilli and garlic sauce. Very simple, cheap and filling!

Our meals last week went quite well. For the “plate” for yoga I took Zucchini Slice made in muffin tins, which worked well. For the other outing we made a simple dip to eat with crackers, and some sliced fruit.

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Hmmm, last week we had a few mix-ups…

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Well, this is the first menu I’ve posted for three weeks!

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Just thought I’d let you know that they’ve extended their great offer…

Until December 9th the price of Vault membership is $27, save $20!

Simple Savings is the only website I’ve ever paid to be a member of, and I continue to renew that membership at only $17 each year. Highly recommended!

Ooops, I’m a little late with this post. And thanks for your patience whilst the site was down for two weeks. For now, I’m back!

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Last week was another with a few mix-ups but overall things went well. Wednesday’s curry was pushed to Thursday, and we skipped the fried rice. We had leftovers and eggs on toast on Saturday night, and moved the quiche to Sunday night.

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Last week the menu was a little messed around. The mushrooms didn’t come through our co-op, so I did the couscous salad with zucchini (pan-fried), the mushroom sauce with cauliflower and there was no bulk pasta sauce cooked up. Friday night’s risotto was swapped for beans & eggs on toast. Saturday night’s Indian food was swapped for an Aussie BBQ (and poker night, fun!) and on Sunday we ate leftovers… So overall very different, but still yummy, home cooked food.

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This is from my sister Sam, who should have her own blog! She has just finished Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom, a book I recommended to her recently. I love the quote she chose to send in her weekly email from Japan…
“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half asleep, even when they are busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuesdays_With_Morrie