Australian Bush Life

Home made organic Chilli Tabasco Sauce.

This recipe makes approximately 1 litre of home made organic Tabasco Sauce, which stores well and is a great gift for friends or family that like hot sauces. It is also a great way to process and store organic chilli’s grown in the garden if you end up with an abundance like we did.

Ingredients:

• 4 Kilograms of chilli’s. We used bell shaped chilli peppers but any type would do. Different types may just vary the final heat of your sauce.
• 8 garlic cloves peeled
• 4 cups white vinegar
• 4 teaspoons salt
• 4 teaspoons sugar

Directions:

Chop out any bad pieces of the chilli’s and chop off the stems then blend the remainder (seeds and all) to make a chilli pulp. Also puree the garlic cloves while the blender is out.

Boil the chilli pulp, pureed garlic, salt, sugar and vinegar in a non-aluminium saucepan until tender – about 20 minutes boiling.

Run all the contents from the saucepan through a fine metal sieve. Separate the thick chilli pulp from the more watery Tabasco Sauce.

Chilli pulp being strained from tabasco sauce.

Re-boil the Tabasco Sauce for another 10 minutes and add more vinegar, salt or sugar to suit your taste (as required). Also ensure a saucy/runny – but not too runny consistency (it needs to stick to your burritos or nachos). To finish pour contents into pre-cleaned and sterlised jars.

In addition if you want to avoid composting all the chilli pulp waste it can be added to sterilised jars. Pack the jars with chilli pulp, stir through a small amount of oil. Also cover the top layer with oil to minimise chance of spoilage and then store in the refrigerator. Simply add a spoonful to spice up any meal.

We had thought about home brewing beer as part of our sustainable lifestyle plan for a long time – and have now completed 3 batches of beer. We have always loved a beer at the end of working in the garden all day and found that the beer bottles and beer bottle caps in our recycle bin were something that we could possibly eliminate from the recycling system.

Athough recycling is a good system, obviously better than ending up in landfill, we felt that home brewing our own beer had far greater sustainability benefits than just recycling glass bottles alone such as:

Reduced Water:

• Minimal water is required in cleaning bottles at home – less than 5 litres will clean and sterilise bottles for almost 3 standard slabs (65 x 375ml stubbies or 33 x 750ml longnecks)
• No water is required to make new glass bottles
• No water is required for transportation of the beer (i.e. humans, ships and/or trucks used to lug all these heavy bottles all over the world)
• The remaining water required is purely that used to be turned into beer for drinking

Reduced Energy:

• We only brew our beer in the autumn and spring when room temperature is really suitable for brewing beer – natural room temperature varies around 18-25 degrees celcius so no additional heating or cooling is required
• Minimal fossil fuels used in transportation avoiding purchase of transported (weighty) beers often all over the world saves a lot of energy. We also avoid transporting beer from the shops and then no recycling transport taking bottles away and moving glass around to be made into new bottles.
• Brewing at home during the day also reduces other typical factory energy needs such as lighting and also small scale production allows human labour to take over from energy consuming machinery on the production line.

Reduced Materials:

• We committed to buying flip top bottled beer on and off for a year to build up a stash of easy to refill bottles. They were more expensive but don’t even require adding bottle caps so are fully re-used as well as reduce risk of breakage as we don’t have to hammer on the bottle caps.
• We were lucky enough to find our beer brewing kit on the hard waste (what a find). Couldn’t believe our luck as it was brand new still in the box and we saved it going to landfill and gained the inspiration we needed to start brewing beer and we haven’t looked back.

Home brewing beer - cleaning and sterilising bottles.

We are not going to go into recipes as there are so many home beer brewing bloggers out there. Our main aim is to inspire others to give beer brewing a go if you have been thinking about it as not only does it save money it is so easy, takes far less time than you think and it will make a big difference to the environment.

Summary of dollars and time required to home brew beer.

Beer brewing ingredients cost between $20 – $40 depending on quality and overall flavour chosen etc. This produces almost 3 standard slabs (65 x 375ml stubbies or 33 x 750ml longnecks). Time needed: 30 minutes x 2 people to get the brew going, leave it brewing for 1 – 2 weeks and then about 1.5 hours x 2 people to bottle the beers. Within 2 weeks you can start enjoying the rewards.

Home brewing beer - bottling and sealing.

Also the kit we luckily found would have cost less than $100 to buy new so after just a few home brews you will have made all your money back on outlay for the equipment.

More sustainable living tips…

Add blended garlic to sterilised jars and top up with olive oil.

10 months after our garlic harvest most of the garlic cloves that we use for cooking had begun sprouting and many were also drying out. Even though they were still useable for cooking we decided to process some of our garlic. This would ensure we have useable garlic for cooking through the next 2 months when we will begin our next annual garlic harvest. Processed garlic can also make great presents.

We peeled all our leftover cloves and separated the already more drier looking ones to go through a dehydrating (drying) process and then better more juicy looking cloves to go into oil.

DEHYDRATING (DRYING) GARLIC

Blended garlic in the dehydrator.

We simply put all the cloves into the blender to create finer pieces. This helps in the drying process as the smaller they are the quicker to dry and they will make smaller more useable flakes.

Then we spread the blended pieces out into our dehydrator as thinly as possible and dried them for a few hours, stirring them once or twice through the process to ensure that all the pieces are dried evenly.

After they have cooled they can be added to a sterilised jar* and should last for many months if stored at a stable temperature.

FRESH GARLIC IN OIL

You can put in whole garlic cloves but we blend the cloves so that we have a pre-diced garlic blend that is ready to use at cooking time. We get the hard work dicing out of the way now and just put a teaspoon straight into our recipes! Once blended simply fill a sterilised jar* with blended garlic or whole garlic cloves, add olive oil (or any other oil you like).

We find for the garlic to have a longer preservation time when storing in oil is is really important to keep all parts of the garlic as well covered with oil as possible. This reduces air or water coming into contact with the garlic and causing it to degrade. To ensure good coverage use a knife to mix the oil right through the garlic pieces (or cloves) so that the garlic is thoroughly covered in oil. Using this technique the garlic can keep in the fridge for about 2 months or longer just make sure the oil is still covering the garlic after each use.

*We always pre-boil any jars and lids we use before we add food to reduce bacteria and other micro-organisims that will degrade the food.

Click here for more information on how to grow and harvest garlic…

Lemon Butter. Home made with organic lemons.

This is one of my favorite recipes as I remember clearly eating home made lemon butter on toast at my Nana’s house when I was growing up. I wrote down this recipe one day as she reeled it off the top of her head. This is my special recipe which helps me remember my Nana now that she is not with us anymore. I hope you enjoy it too!

• 1 large or 2 small lemons
• 1 cup of sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• Jar – makes approximately 400-500g

Grate rind from 1 large or 2 small lemons, preferably organic ones from your own lemon tree. Place rind gratings in a saucepan with 1 cup of sugar, pinch of salt and the juice from the lemons. Stir over low heat until the sugar dissolves then add in 2 beaten eggs and continue stirring over low heat until the mixture thickens.

Pour into a cleaned (and sterlised) jar. It is preferable to sterilise the jar by placing in boiling water for a few minutes first. Store in the fridge and eat on fresh bread or toast. Will last 2 – 3 months in the fridge, but will probably be eaten before then!

To accompany your Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls you can make a version of the peanut dipping sauce (nước chấm) that is served at Vietnamese restaurants around town.

Ingredients:

• Hoisin Sauce – 100 mls
• Freshly ground peanuts or Crunchy Peanut Butter – 50 grams
• Corn Flour – sprinkle
• Water as required

In a saucepan mix over medium heat the peanut butter or ground peanuts with the hoisin sauce. Once mixed remove from heat and dilute the sauce as requiredwith a dash of water and a sprinkle of corn flour. Dilute slowly and repeat as required to reduce the strength of the sauce flavour to a taste you like.

Sprinkle sauce with crushed peanuts or coriander for garnish if you have available.

Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls (Gỏi cuốn) is a fresh and healthy recipe you can make from most of your garden produce through summer and autumn that are eaten cold:

What you need to make about 15 rolls (2 would be entree size / person), make more to store in the fridge for later:

• Rice vermicelli/noodles – 200g
• Large Round Rice Paper sheets (at least 15)
• Carrots – 2 – 3 large
• Spring Onions – 5 medium
• Cucumber – 1 large
• Vietnamese Mint – minimum 45 leaves (3/roll)
• Coriander (a large handful – as much as you like the flavour)
• Great as vegetarian but optional meat could be prawns or roast pork

Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls and Peanut Dipping Sauce stored in re-usable containers.

Chop the carrots, cucumber and spring onions into long thin slivers. We pre-cook the carrots slightly in the microwave (in a bowl with plate on top) for about 2 minutes or just soft of raw. Lay all 3 out in seperate piles on a plate.

Dice the herbs, coriander and vietnamese mint. Place on a plate in seperate piles.

Place the vermicelli into a pot with boiling water and cook for 10 minutes. Strain and sit in strainer ready for rolling.

Now you are ready to roll on a clean flat surface. To soften the rice paper we dip the papers into a frying pan with warm water covering the bottom. Dip one at a time for about 5 seconds, roll before dipping the next. Place the soft paper on a flat surface and fill across the centre in a line (not to the ends) with all the ingredients, carrots, cucumber, onions, vermicelli and herbs. Then roll one long end over and flip the side ends in and continue rolling on the long end to form the Vietnamese Roll. The papers should be really sticky and hold together well, this is all about dipping the paper in warm water for the right amount of time.

Great fresh, dipped in soy sauce or you can also make a special peanut dipping sauce just like in the Vietnamese Restaurants in town. The rolls are great for summer lunches, entrees or dinners  and can easily be packed into re-usable tubs to take to work for a healthy lunch.

More recipes…

Roots of Bushtucker plant Foothill Yam-daisy. Microseris lanceolata. Murnong (Wurundjeri).

In addition to experimenting with eating Murnong or the Foothill Yam Daisy – Microseris lanceolata on the BBQ this summer we tried roasting it. This round we harvested in early March there is still the odd flower on the plant but it has really slowed down and this is supposed to be a good time to harvest it. The last harvest for the BBQ was a month ago.

Roast Murnong (Wurundjeri) - Foothill Yam-daisy. Microseris lanceolata.

We pulled out the largest Murnong we had and this was worthwhile as the root system was much bigger than the last round we tried, maybe an extra month in the ground had also allowed the Murnong to store more in its roots prior to winter coming. We simply cleaned the roots with water and then added them to our roast meal just like all the other vegetables. The texture great and taste again was quite delicious as it was roasted alongside sprigs of rosemary and onions.

Zucchini juice a sweet refreshing drink.

It can be a bit scary when you miss a zucchini hiding on the plant, particularly after a for a few hot days. And then…. in the garden you find a giant monster sized zucchini. Even though we love the taste of small tender zucchini’s in most meals the large ones are great for seed collection and are actually really great for zucchini juice as they are full of water, vitamins and minerals.

Recently after preparing a zucchini quiche we had about 1.5 litres of healthy green juice left over. Not sure what to do with such a good store of nutrients we did some research and found that it is a really healthy juice – ready to drink. It was a hot day so we added lots of ice and it was sweet, delicious and refreshing. Highly recommend not wasting this great bi-product and improving your health all in one go.

When you find those zucchini’s hiding in the vegie patch that grew to monster size and you don’t know what to do with them here is a yummy idea. About 8 large serves.

• 3 large zucchini’s
• 2-3 large potatoes
• 8 eggs
• 2 cups of milk
• 150 grams of grated cheese
• 1 onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• sprinkle of salt and pepper
• other vegetables and herbs to flavour as desired.

Peel most of the skin off the zucchini’s if not to tough leave some for coloring in your dish. Grate the soft inner flesh of the zucchini’s. We do this in a food processor as it is really quick. Squeeze the juice out of the grated zucchini into a bowl or cup (we do this by squeezing through a clean cloth or tea towel). The zucchini juice makes a great health drink full of vitamins and minerals. Add the drier zucchini gratings to another bowl.

Chop your potatoes into thick slices and lay them on the bottom of a lighlty oiled quiche dish. We either pre-cook the potatoes in the oven or microwave until soft to ensure that they will be cooked in your quiche, you might also like to put your chopped onions and garlic in for a pre-cook too. While the potatoes are cooking add the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and any other finely chopped vegetables and herbs of your choosing to the bowl with the zucchini gratings and mix well. Once the potatoes are softened lay the zucchini mixture over the potato base. Top the dish with grated cheese and cook in the oven at 180 degrees for 45 minutes or until the cheesy top goes brown and crunchy.

• 

  Rocket and Silverbeet Pesto in re-useable container.

  2 large silverbeet leaves (can substitute with spinach or Warrigal Greens – a bushtucker food)

• about 25 rocket leaves (can substitute with basil)
• about 100 grams of pine nuts
• about 25mls of olive oil (extra virgin)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Save a little of the oil and pine nuts to garnish otherwise put all ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth. Then top with remaining pine nuts and ensure that the top is completely covered in oil to ensure it lasts as long as possible. This is enough for between 8-10 serves of pasta depending on how strong you like the flavour, simply fry garlics and onion on the night then add your pesto to the cooked pasta. Store in the fridge upto a month, re-cover the top layer with oil if you only use a bit each week to make it last.