Due to the thousands of irrelevant spam comments I’m receiving here each month, I’ve decided to close Comments on this site on past and future posts.  It’s really time consuming to sort through all the Comments and delete the revolting spam.  I could have deleted relevant Comments last night as I went through the backlog of nearly 4000 Comments and deleted them all.  I’m sorry if your Comment was deleted.

I always welcome feedback via email, so please keep in touch!

And if I find out how to more carefully filter Comments using Wordpress, I will trial allowing them again.

With everyone almost over their winter ills, and the sun shining bright and bold, it really does feel like Spring here!

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Last week I attended an evening presentation by Cyndi O’Meara in conjunction with Thermomix Australia.  Cyndi was fascinating to listen to - a bundle of energy and enthusiasm and such a wealth of information.  She reinforced a lot of what I believe about food, and introduced a few new ideas as well…

This Australian nutritionist encourages us to eat whole foods of the old-fashioned variety…  Cyndi gave us some great tips which I’ve passed on to our kids with regard to label reading, number of ingredients and when to eat which foods.

If you’d like to learn more, check out her website.  And if you can hear Cyndi’s presentation sometime, I highly recommend it!

For the next couple of months, whilst Cyndi’s running a free teleseminar series, you can get her best seller Changing Habits for only $19.97. And if you click on Free Products, on her site, there’s a free report. Enjoy!

Our very mild winter is drawing to an end, and I see hints of spring everywhere in the garden.  We’ve had lingering coughs and colds this winter, so it hasn’t been much fun in that way!

I got some new tshirts (from the op shop!) and a haircut though, which cheered some winter blues away.  Yes, it’s been warm enough quite often to wear a tshirt this winter!

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I have decided to move all of this year’s menus to a new blog, Home Cooked.  I deleted all of last year’s menus from this blog, but the other posts about menu planning and meals have all been moved.

I’m sorry that I lost all of your lovely comments along the way.  Please feel free to drop over to the new blog and comment there though.

The recipes are still on this blog, but I’ll probably start posting them over there, and might copy some across as well.

Hopefully, I will then use this main blog for more of my writing and family news, as intended.

One of my articles is featured on the Natural Life website this month.  If you follow that link and watch the main page, a cute pic of Lily with the nasturtiums pops up.  It’s an old photo, but a favourite!  The link to my article (which is a bi-monthly column, Home Grown Kids) is on the right of that pic, or click here.  And the beauty in the photo on that page is Abby, raiding the vegie patch a few years ago!

Natural Life is also available through Spiral Garden, for Australian subscribers.

And now for another advertisement…  Spiral Garden is having a 10% off sale until June 30.  AND we’re running a great competition!

It has been at least a couple of months since I’ve written an update on this blog.  We’re in the midst of birthday season at our place.  Within a couple of months we celebrate the birthdays of Lily, Brittany, Imogen, Bryce & I (same day) and the Dad.

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Just in case you thought this blog has turned into a recipes and menu one, I’d like to share some links to other writings…

On the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op Blog, my posts are:

Menu Planning for Many (18 October 2008)

Animals in the Garden and Beyond (24 October 2008)

Enough (1 November 2008)

Babysitting Clubs (22 December 2008)

Creating Connected Communities (3 January 2009)

Stockpiling - The Basics (18 Jaunary 2009)

Real Nappies (31 January 2009)

Where do you get the time for that? Part 3 (1 March 2009)

Magical Seeds (14 March 2009)

Harvest Time - Pumpkin (29 March 2009)

Bushtucker and Wild Food (12 April 2009)

Wanting It All (27 April 2009)

Spending to Save (3 May 2009)

Willing Workers (18 May 2009)

Expensive Children? (2 June 2009)

Creative Garden (3 July 2009)

To Market, To Market (18 July 2009)

Garden Help Online (2 August 2009)

Burnout (16 August 2009)

Cooking With Kids (30 August 2009)

Our House Cow Journey Part One (13 September 2009)

Work Options ( 27 September 2009)

Our House Cow Journey Part Two (6 November 2009)

Patience (20 November 2009)

Preparing for the Wet (4 December 2009)

Simple Gift Ideas (18 December 2009)

A New Year (8 January 2010)

Cyclone Season (22 January 2010)

Growing Community (5 February 2010)

Rosellas (19 February 2010)

Harvest Time - Choko (10 March 2010)

Frugal Homeschooling (19 March 2010)

Our House Cow Journey Part Three (2 April 2010)

What’s in the Box? (16 April 2010)

I’ve also contributed to every issue of Natural Life for over a year now, writing about gardening with children.

There might be some more of my work being published by Warm Earth or Otherways if I can get organised enough this winter…

And hopefully there will be a few more interesting posts and regular updates on this blog and on Home Grown too!

We made this in my friend Jo’s Thermomix a couple of weeks ago, and I made it at home in my food processor.  The thermomix was a lot faster and didn’t create the pile of dishes I had from using the grater and food processor at home.  I have a basil plant, so am making pesto to use more of this prolific herb.

1/2 cup raw cashews (pine nuts or macadamias would be fine too)

1/2 cup parmesan cheese, finely grated

2 cups basil leaves

1/2 cup olive oil

squeeze of lemon juice

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Grind the cashews into small pieces.  Add basil, garlic, grated parmesan and blend.  Add the oil and squeeze of lemon juice until the texture seems right.  Serve with pasta, on crackers, on toast with cheese grilled on top…  Keeps well in fridge.

6 Chokos
2 carrots
1 onion
Fresh beans
Water
Salt, pepper and curry powder
Peel all vegetables and dice.  Place into a saucepan with enough water to just cover and boil until tender.  Add curry powder, salt and pepper to taste.  Puree to serve.

1 kg chokos
1 tablespoon white vinegar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon freshly crushed garlic
1 medium onion finely sliced
salt and pepper
Heat enough water with a pinch of salt in a large saucepan and boil all the chokos for about 20 minutes or until tender. Remove from boiling water and allow to cool. Peel and halve the chokos. Discard the seeds and cut into slices. Mix together the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, and sliced onions. Pour over the sliced chokos and carefully mix without breaking the choko slices. This salad makes a good addition to any meal as a side dish.

1 onion
1 carrot
1/2 capsicum
1 cup green beans
440g tin pineapple pieces, with juice
1 tblspn tomato paste
2 tblspn lemon juice
2 tblspn rapadura sugar (or brown sugar)
1 tblspn tamari (soy sauce)
1 tblspn cornflour + 1/2 cup water, combined

Heat oil, saute vegies.  Add pineapple juice, tomato paste, lemon juice, sugar, tamari.  Bring to the boil and reduce heat.  Add cornflour and water mixture.  Stir until thick.  Add pineapple pieces and heat through.

500g dry lima beans

800g tin diced tomatoes

2 medium onions, chopped finely

1/3 cup olive oil

1 1/2 cups hot water

2 tblspn fresh parsley, chopped

1 tsp dried herbs

salt and pepper to taste

Soak the lima beans overnight.  Rinse and simmer in fresh water for 50 minutes.  Heat a little oil and saute onion.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 5 minutes.  Mix with rinsed beans and place in lightly greased baking dish.  Bake uncovered at 170 degrees C for 30 minutes.

This recipe makes a lot and freezes well.  Serve with crusty bread and salad or steamed vegetables.  Very hearty!