Slow Living in June

Considering it's all about slow living, maybe a late post for June is perfectly acceptable. I am travelling in the slow lane for sure this month. Our late frosts hit hard in June, even destroying my pretty flowering pot plants deep under the verandah. Come and meander with me as I attempt to remember the highs of June, following along with Slow Living Essentials 

NOURISH

In spite of the chilly winter weather, invigorating salads still feature regularly on our table. We eat what is available seasonally as much as possible. So there are no iceberg lettuces or summer cucumbers, rather more robust, even bitter flavours. We make our salads from a selection of just picked chicory leaves, rocket, oak leaf lettuce, baby spinach, bok choi, mizuna, chinese cabbage and beetroot leaves which have a fresh earthy flavour. Then I add in the flavour families to suit the salad, either picked from our vegetable tunnel, or taken from the pantry.

For example:

 pickled peppers, sundried tomatoes, our own feta, sliced spring onions and olives if we're lucky

or 

walnuts, chopped bottled apples and sliced celery tossed with yoghurt, lemon juice and olive oil

or

boiled eggs, pickled peppers, toasted sunflower seeds, sundried tomatoes, bits of crispy bacon in a vinaigrette

or 

chickpeas, garlic, onion, sesame seeds, sundried tomatoes and pepperdews

etc

 I also did Patrick Holford's 9 Day Liver Detox which was wonderful, clearing my brain fog and energising me. 

Another regular feature on our table was leek pie. It's a popular favourite. I will post the recipe separately.

PREPARE

Rather than put up food from the harvest, this is my resting season where I get to enjoy the hard work from summer. I am loving the smoothies and crumbles made from frozen fruit chunks; the honey and bottled fruit on porridge and flapjacks; jams and jellies on toast; and all the frozen veggies in soups and stews. 

Oh, but I did make some wild melon preserve, I couldn't help myself - Use it ... Don't Lose it

REDUCE

I am collecting up our candle stubs for a mammoth candle making session. I keep all tiny containers for seed storage as well as those little silica sachets that come with vitamins. They will keep the stored seeds dry too. 

GREEN

Epsom salts in solution made an excellent ant deterrent in my veggie tunnel. Crushed egg shells kept the slugs off my baby broad beans too. 

GROW

Our winter tunnel looks so barren, but if you look, there is still so much to harvest - the greens that I mentioned already, leeks galore, onions, beetroot, turnips on their way, black radish, celery, spring onions, broccoli, kale, a few carrots, herbs and some tiny brassica seedlings.

After the first hard frost I cut off the tops of some leaf chicory and planted the roots in a pot, covered it and put it in a dark place. The plan was to force the chicory to make endives. In their dark spot, I promptly forgot about them. The last time I checked, they could have made endives, but they look a bit too mature. I don't have a final pic to show you. 

We planted alfalfa and mustard spinach as green manure. There is also a fair bit of farm manure going into next seasons potato beds. Heavy frosts sadly killed the carrots that had just germinated. 

We have another new hanslammetjie that we are growing, So now we have Baby Lamb and Fat Lamb. Rosie's belly and udder continued to grow larger and larger through the month of June, full of promise of a calf. 

CREATE

My husband spent quite some time away from our home creating wooden beauty in a faraway friend's home. 

DISCOVER 

I read the Michael Pollan book, Omnivore's Dilemma. This book is a must read for everyone who eats meat. I found it extremely challenging. I went on to watch some inspiring YouTube videos on Joal Salatin at Polyface

farm. I want to make so many changes here as a result of these discoveries, however, most of those changes will need the help of a very busy husband, so for now they are merely dreams. The book and video clips are however well worth an online search.

 ENHANCE

Does hosting different groups of family and friends during the school holidays count? I am sure we enhanced their holidays. 

ENJOY

The best of June was connecting with visiting family and friends. We had Grant's cousin and her children from America and his aunt,

my sister-in-law and my 2 year old nephew, 

my namesake and bff from school that I haven't seen for over 6 years with her family, 

my eldest sister and to top it all, my mum. 

Sadly I was so busy enjoying my mum's company that I forgot to photograph her.

Some of their visits overlapped, but it was a crazy wonderful time filled with excursions to a frozen stream to play on and with the ice; 

as well as cow milking sessions; bottle-feeding the lambs; horse rides;

 walks up the koppie; heart-to-heart connections; laughter and reminiscing and plenty of good food. 

Foraging Again

A few weeks ago I was merrily driving down the dusty farm roads on my way to town with my children when I spied a few Tsamma melons, wild melons or cattle melons (same fruit, diverse names) growing half-hidden in the long grass of the verge. These melons are like sour watermelons, white inside. I pulled over despite my daughter's protests about being late for her driving lesson, and loaded the whole lot of them into the back of my car. It turned out that there were about fifteen of them hidden in the thatching grass.

We chopped some and fed them to our delighted cattle and turned some into melon preserve. The same recipe is used for a watermelon rind preserve. It is a typically South African recipe, wartlemoen konfyt.

 Basically you peel off the green rind and scoop out the flesh (which went to the chickens). Then chunks of the inner white rind are soaked in a slaked lime solution overnight. The next day boil the rinsed chunks of rind until they are soft. Make a 1:1 sugar syrup and boil the rind in the syrup with some chopped ginger and a quartered lemon until the pieces are shiny and translucent. 

I am looking forward to trying some wild melon preserve with chunks of blue cheese once I get back into the swing of cheese-making again. 

Now I just need to find a use for that beautiful long thatching grass that lines our roads at this time of year. The local Basotho ladies cut it and weave it into traditional hats and brooms, as shown in my May Slow Living post. They also use it for thatching their homes. Maybe I should ask one of them to teach me how to weave it. 

Slow Living in May

I know it's already almost the middle of June, but I am still going ahead with my May Slow Living post. The last time I wrote a Slow Living post, inspired by Slow Living Essentials, was November last year. I stopped for various reasons...

... My neck pain was prohibiting much time at the computer
... I uncomfortably felt as if my long lists of monthly achievements sounded like bragging and it felt awkward. That is not my intention at all.
... I was very busy with making the most of the summer harvests
... Generally life was exhausting and stressed. It was all I could do to live it, let alone blog about it.
... They may call it Slow Living, but it is time consuming, tough living doing things from scratch.
... Blogger stopped me publishing photos for some reason.


However, more than 6 months later, I feel the need to start journalling my months the Slow Living way again, also for various reasons...

... I have found myself referring back to last year's Slow Living posts, almost like an almanac of what to expect in the current month
... I enjoy keeping records of what I do, so that I can appreciate what happens to my time
... I would love to have a full year of Slow Living posts, they create a lovely picture of my life here
... I miss the friendly monthly contact with the other Slow Living regular bloggers. Ok, ok I do live in an isolated place.
... I do feel incredibly blessed with this lifestyle which I never dreamed I would live
... For some reason Blogger is letting me publish photos again

So here goes for May:

NOURISH

With the weather turning cooler, soups have made an appearance back on the menu. Often I alternate them on a daily basis with salads e.g. Monday soup for lunch, Tuesday salad, Wednesday soup again etc. Our leeks are out in full force, so I have turned to my favourite leek pie recipe many times lately. Now that the fruit harvest is over we have also started tucking into our bottled store of sunshine. We have been enjoying fruit tarts, or fruit on our breakfast regularly. Think peaches, walnuts and honey on oat porridge, walnut and green fig muffins, quince tart. Even the salads are enjoying summer's sun dried tomatoes, pickled peppers and the wonderful walnuts.

PREPARE
I have been thwarting Jack Frost by collecting herbs and hanging them prettily to dry in the sunny kitchen window. May was also a time for collecting and packaging the last of our summer seeds for next year's planting.

REDUCE
There are no oranges growing around here, so I bartered with a friend, swapping our honey and cheese for a whole lot of jars of marmalade and a few other lovely preserves of hers. This reduces the impact on my budget. I love bartering, the month before I swapped honey and cheese for crates of quinces.
We also fixed up our worm composting bin which had collapsed onto the worm-water-collecting-bucket. The worms had been a bit neglected over summer. I gave them a blanket of dried autumn leaves, and now I am feeding them regularly, poor things.

GREEN
Extravagant Dad had a bad cough which kept waking me at night until I made him drink my homemade honey and lemon juice cough syrup. It worked, and I slept.

We collected a little river sand, mixed it with some compost, ordinary garden soil and vermiculite which came from the attic of this house and made our own seedling soil and potting soil.

I also made some Calendula salve using the recipe I found at Slow Living Essentials (see link above)

GROW
The last sad remains of our summer vegetables were pulled out of the veggie tunnel to make way for our winter crops of brassicas, onions, garlic, leeks and winter greens. We planted broad beans, peas, spring onions and radishes. I am still loving the heirloom vegetables grown from a generous seed gift from my brother-in-law.

CREATE
In May we decorated our guest cottage with an African theme. Extravagant Dad painted it white, fixed the plumbing and put up curtain rods and new lights.

I sewed white curtains, made Mandela hot water bottle covers and cushions from shwe-shwe fabric.

 I used a Basotho hat and broom to decorate the wall and put blankets, that the Basotho people wear around their bodies, onto the bed. I hung two African prints from my friend and artist, Thandi, on the wall.

 Then I used typically South African enamel tinware for utensils. It was a fun project. I am still busy completing two more cushions and I would like to keep working on the finishing touches.

DISCOVER
My most exciting discovery in May was Jane's Delicious Garden Planner. I used it for free on a 30 day trial, loved it so much that I have subscribed for a year. You can plot the layout of your garden, plan the vegetables and, according to your area, the program will provide you with a planting guide. They send an email every 2 weeks with recommended planting, harvesting times, garden chores etc. It is also jam packed with detailed information on each plant type. The program also helps you plan crop rotation, as well as calculating how many plants to put in each bed according to their growing requirements. I spent hours in May plotting and planning for the current season as well as next year's growing season. My May layout for our vegetable tunnel is here. If you scroll down you'll see the localised planting schedule for the year as well as buying guides.

My very clever husband, with no official  IT training, discovered how to replace the hard drive in his Mac that crashed. He bravely opened up the computer and figured it out with a little online help, letting our children learn from the experience too. He amazes me at his IT skills, all completely self taught. I think he has become the local Apple expert. He often receives calls from friends and family needing IT help.

I also spent a lot of time in  May gleaning information from my experienced uncle and looking online to learn how to care for foster lambs, or handslammetjies, as we call them here in South Africa. We had two little ones. One died in spite of my diligence.

ENHANCE
I am giving weekly cooking lessons to our two staff. Molly, who helps with the garden, milking and the horses, didn't even know what a cucumber was. He tried to cook the first one I gave him from our garden. The lessons started when he asked me to to teach him how to use a microwave besides just for heating food. I am not keen on the microwave, but I showed him a 7 minute chocolate cake recipe. The following week I taught him and Blantina an oven chocolate cake recipe, and the recipes have progressed from there to jelly and custard, leek pie, roast chicken and pizza. Molly was amazed that one can bake a cake at home and that he doesn't have to buy cake from the shops.

ENJOY
Molly, an ex boxer, has started teaching my son how to box. I love looking outside at the end of the day, seeing the two of them working out at the punch bag. Molly is an excellent coach.

Mother's day was special. My husband and children gave me beautiful cards and gifts, a special breakfast and then later in the day we went out to lunch. Typical of living in the country, our meal was eaten to the accompaniment of bovine bellowing, and cows dominated our view.

My daughter's photography is going from strength to strength. She is more than halfway through her 365 day self-portrait challenge. I snuck this pic of her doing an Autumn self portrait in the apricot orchard. Take a look at her blog to see the resulting self portrait.

Autumn Quinces

It's an Autumn evening, crisply cold outside. The fire is crackling in the hearth. We are watching our traditional Friday night movie as a family. Our bellies are full with dinner cooked by Dad for Special Night. Due to miscommunication, there are two desserts waiting to be eaten, maybe mine can wait until tomorrow. It looks like his choice of sago pudding will be our dessert.

This afternoon I made a new recipe, elastic Mom style , using quinces that were given to me. The recipe for Upside Down Quince Tart came from a delightful South African cookbook, Prickly Pears and Pomegrantaes by Bernadette le Roux. The recipe is a variation of Tarte Tatin, the traditional French caramelised apple tart which I first tasted as a student on the streets of Paris.

I try to cook everything that we eat from what we grow ourselves, but this time I cheated and used a shop-bought puff pastry. The basic concept is so simple and can be extended to any fruit:

Caramelise some butter and sugar on the hob in a glass or metal pie dish, arrange your poached or fresh fruit over the caramel, top with pastry and bake. It is delicious. So simple, but French cuisine at its glorious best.

Making Lemonade from Lemons

 When the sky pelts us with enough hailstones to collapse the extension to our vegetable tunnel, and freeze our lettuce and tomato plants, it's time to make lemonade from lemons.

Gather up a cup of clean hailstones, pour over grape syrup to taste, stir vigorously, and enjoy your hail slushy.

Considering that we drink borehole water, breathe road dust daily, and eat what we grow, the infinitesimal pollutants in the hailstones are unlikely to harm us. There is an Afrikaans saying here in South Africa, 'Wat nie dood maak nie, maak vet'. (What doesn't kill you makes you fat)

A frugally minded friend collects buckets of hail, stores them in her freezer and uses them to ice the vegetables that she is blanching. It saves the effort of freezing lots of ice in the first place. My freezer is too full of garden harvests to do that, but it's a cool idea.

Foraging for Prickly Pears

During his tea break this morning, my ever-helpful son ran up the hill and collected a bucket of prickly pears for me, well, for a bit of financial reward. This interesting fruit has always intrigued me the way they grow on the end of the cactus leaves, like jewels. 

Inspired by my beautiful recipe book, Prickly Pears and Pomegranates by Bernadette Le Roux and Marianne Palmer, I decided that today my family could dine on this sweet, veld delicacy. I spent quite some time peeling them with a knife and fork to avoid the fine hairs that can be as irritating as fibre glass under your skin, and which my boy had succeeded in imbedding in his fingers in spite of the recommended tin-can-and-stick method to extricate the fruit from the cactus.

 

One third were chilled until lunchtime, then enjoyed in their juicy, fresh, unadulterated sweetness for dessert. Their seeds, much like a guava, are very hard, so one has to chew them carefully. 

The second third were cooked up into a translucent syrup with an unusual, tangy sweetness that had me licking fingers and the spoon. This is another pantry treat to be saved for special occasions. I can imagine it poured over flapjacks topped with fresh fruit and yoghurt, dolloped on waffles or drizzled over custard ice-cream.

The final third are decorating our dining table in a beautiful, locally crafted, Mud Studio, yellow pottery bowl.

It is easier to forage in the countryside, but even in the city, there are interesting foods to be found if you open your eyes. Reminiscing back to when we lived in the city, some Cape Town treasures that I can think of are:

Black mussels picked off the rocks at low tide

Mushrooms in the pine forests

Dandelions in the fields

Pears dropping off a lone tree on a popular walk

Friends and family with unused fruit on their trees.

Sour figs that grow wild on the sand dunes and make a cheek-sucking, tart preserve

Eugenia berries in the hedges

Chestnuts underfoot in the older suburbs

Pine nuts if the squirrels didn't get them first

Fennel in abundance on certain pavements I know

Figs hanging over a neighbour's wall

And fish, of course.

And then when we visit my sister in the foothill pine plantations of the Drakensberg Mountains there is hunting, trout fishing, mushroom foraging and berry picking.

What is free for the foraging where you live?

Edited to add:  I have realised that I am one of the 1% of people allergic to prickly pears. Eating them makes my chest tight. The more I ate, the tighter my chest became, and my lips became tingly and numb. I am terribly disappointed, as I had all sorts of plans for prickly pear wine, prickly pear ice-cream, and other concoctions. A bit of internet research also revealed that the leaves are edible, and frequently used in Mexican cuisine. Prickly pears are apparently useful in helping diabetes and high cholesterol. 

Extending the Abundance

My mum-in-law is one of the kindest, most generous people that I know. She has taken the principle of USE-IT - DON'T LOSE IT to far greater heights than I could imagine. 

Here's her story:

"I have spent the last month foraging granadillas, crawling through dense undergrowth and dead spikey shrubs that the granadillas had killed, my arm is permanently bleeding.  Had a great idea to put them up for sale at R1 each in the  front of pharmacy to raise funds for Grace the cleaner who lost everything in a huge fire that swept through Khayalitsha . I was picking up 200 a day (also sold 20 kilos to your friend), well she was given over a thousand rand today to buy little hotplate and oven and an iron and still have change. Also have bags of frozen juice. Hope you can take some back with you!"

I am inspired. What better way to use the abundance that we live with, than to share it with another person, enriching their life and our own. After all, it is far better to give than to receive.