Grafting Workshop

I attended an awesome weekend grafting course run by the Capricorn Coast Landcare group and the Capricorn Edible Plants group. The course was free with funding from the Australian Government and expertly managed by local grafting guru’s Tony Welch and Alby Wooler.

I can honestly say that I went along thinking that it would be a useful skill to learn to graft but would mainly just use the knowledge to graft a few avocado and mulberry trees. By the end of the course I had a totally different outlook and believe that I will probably graft tomato’s, egg plants and other fruit and vegetables from now on rather then just relying on chance productivity from seeds. Also there were some great tips like using root stock take from the Devils Fig which has a high resistance to wilt virus and grafting tomatoes and eggplants onto them. This also extends the life of the plant as the root stock has a much longer life span then the tomato root stock.

I really want to thank Tony and Alby and am sure that I will have years of experimenting ahead of me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Devils Fig

Washing powder finale

This week I came to a conclusion, I could keep hunting for the “perfect” washing powder recipe or I could stick with one I have. Really what was so wrong with it? It gets most of my things clean and smelling fresh… just spray the stains. I am happy that I am getting our clothes and linen clean with less chemicals and go with that. Then I discovered a recipe for homemade stain-remover spray (which I have not tried yet) and this… Australian Botanical Soap, you can find there website here.

So I made some up into washing powder, the lavender smell is so strong that I did not need to add any essential oil. It actually looks and smells exactly like regular washing powder (the nice kind). It cleans the clothes and makes them fresh. I also liked that they used sustainable palm oil. This is important as it gives the communities who would destroy orangutan  forest, an alternative way to survive; allowing them an income for now and setting up for future generations. This soap also feels closer to the castile soap in texture, so I have hope that I may (after a few washes) need the pre-wash spray less.

I used the 2nd washing powder recipe and after the 3rd recipe I have become accustomed to the freshness that comes with the addition of acid so now I add a small cap-full of vinegar to each wash instead of powdered citric acid. When grated, this soap makes about 1.5 cups I used a “1 cup” ratio and then made the second part with my 1 cup a quarter cup… this saved me a maths equation.

Update

I have not found the Natural New-Age Mum’s pre-wash stain remover that I found here to be particularly effective, however it might work for you, and it does make the wash smell nice. I have read that Lemon essential oil is an effective stain remover as is tea-tree oil. I also read that coconut-oil based soaps are more effective for laundry soap powder, I may experiment with adding the above oils and coconut oil soap to my powder. If you are still searching for your “goldilocks” laundry powder recipe you may find this helpful.

Smurf

OMG how cute is this. There was a staff email to come and see the new goats at the Ag farm where I work so I went down and had a long cuddle of this little guy, “Smurf”. He just closed his eyes and snuggled in and probably would have stayed there all day if I let him!

If we didn’t have melioidosis in our soil I would get some mini’s in a heart beat!

New recipes with Thermie

I love Chicken Tonight Honey Mustard sauce, but I am not keen on the additives. This week I found on the recipe community a recipe that is how I remember it tasting, but looks slightly brighter in colour. Recipe here. Honey was not as excited as I was but he ate it without too much complaining. I also decided to try “filleting” chicken legs. there were a few bones that made it in, but I liked that I saved some money on the chicken meat, and our fury child had a huge treat he would otherwise have missed out on. It didn’t take that much longer to dice the chicken and it helped to have it slightly frozen still. If we didn’t have a huge Meremma that would be offended if we didn’t share our yummy food with him, keeping the bones would be invaluable for a delicious chicken stock. I now regularly offend our fury son by keeping our bones aside to make stock.

What was somewhat disappointing in Honey’s reaction to the fist recipe, was completely restored in his reaction to the next one I tried this week, Chicken Satay also on the recipe community here. There were many to choose from, I did not have all the ingredients so made some substitutions… Fish sauce for oyster sauce, soy sauce for tamrai, sweet chilli sauce for a chilli, masala for fennel. Also honey is anti-mixed food, so I kept the veggies separate, steamed in the varoma.

The first batch of Satay I made, I added mushrooms to, as we had some and it was nice too. Our visitors enjoyed the food, and we enjoyed their company. Probably the next best part of having so many people love the food I made, was making some peanut butter. Honey turned me off buying some once by mentioning the “rats per tonnage” thing… We had lots of fun making it in under a minute with a Zero RPT.

Tonight I made this recipe. If you are not a member of the group you may not be able to see the  I used mostly fresh herbs- ginger, garlic, onion, chives (from our garden) and corriander. I made the sauce in Thermie and poured it over some chicken wings (minus the “finger” parts, Snuffy enjoyed them) in the slow cooker and went off to work (I got this idea from a TM consultant who is in the group, she used drumsticks). When I returned home I cooked the rice and veggies in the TM bowl and varoma. It was very nice. However I think I will add some sweet potato next time to the curry. If you have any type Thermomixer machine, or even want one; I absolutely recommend joining this group on FB. Also worth a look is Thermobextas and Thermostruck.

Chicken Madras - HCG P2 Compliant, Paleo, Grain Free, Dairy Free

By Nikalene Riddle (Skinnymixers FB group)
I used Sweet chilli sauce instead of chilli flakes,  Omitted 2 handfuls of baby spinach and served with brown rice in lieu of cauliflower rice

Washing powder 2

For some reason this was not posted till now, but it was written months ago… Ok today I was down to 2-3 scoops so I decided to try out the bicarb soda, soap and washing soda recipe I found on the internet here, which was recommended by another blogger who has a blog called Caleigh's Corner.

HOMEMADE LAUNDRY SOAP

16 cups baking soda (8, 4, 2)

12 cups washing soda (6, 3, 1.5 )

8 cups of grated castile soap/pure soap (4, 2, 1)

10-12 drops lavender essential oil

Brackets mine, as it makes quite a huge amount and I only had 2 bars of soap left. I did not worry about the essential oil, as stated before... I am happy with adding the water soluble stuff to the load as I go.

We do not have castile soap yet but I noticed you can get some very reasonably priced at chemist warehouse.

This time I used the thermomix, maybe I should have used a mask as the dust particles got into my nose and throat. However I cannot be blaming the washing powder entirely as well I am quite afraid of toads... earlier today, I found a dead one in our house and screamed like a banshee. Honey thought I was being attacked by an axe-murderer and came in to find just a smallish huge dead toad. I cringe just typing this stuff.

Results

The clothes smelled fresh straight out of the washing machine. Slightly different to the last “potion”. But looked just as clean and smelled pretty much the same when dry as the previous powder did.

The wet clothes felt slightly different, and dry were perhaps a little starchier. I will play with the amounts of powder to see if I can tweak the perfect wash.

Today

The last powder I made lasted until today. I was keen to see how this worked using pure soap Coles brand. This little beauty has really impressed me as a stain remover. It appears to be palm-oil free too. I used the 4:3:2 ratio, however the 3 blocks of soap I wizzed made slightly more than 2 cups and I added the lot. I will keep you posted as to how it cleans the clothes.

Updates

The Castile soap was better for general stain removal. There are 2-3 articles of clothes that I constantly have to check before popping them in the wash for stains. When I remember to check them, and rub some soap with water on the stains they come out clean, otherwise the stains do not come out in the wash. This could be the fabric that the clothes are made from, I even gave in and bought a spray stain-remover to save time and they were still spotty.

There was no marked difference between the Coles and Woolies brand pure soap, the Coles soap smelled slightly better when the box was opened but the clothes smelled the same after a wash.

Tweaks

I noticed on a few recipes that citric acid was used in the home made washing powders. You had to be careful not to add too much as it would interfere with the salt and washing soda balance. I had heaps of powder left so I decided to add some vinegar with the wash. I had somewhat better overall results, however the 3 garments were still a problem. Making sure the soap was ground to a fine powder was also recommended. I wizzed the rest of my powder for 20 seconds and the results are at the side.

I added vinegar (about half a bottle) to an empty bottle of water soluble eucalyptus oil, with a cap full of 100% eucalyptus oil and have been adding that to the wash instead of the customary cap of eucalyptus oil. This has saved money on eucalyptus and still leaves the clothes smelling fresh.

Updates

Stain removal is better than other ones I have tried, it worked on a tomato sauce stain without spray, but oily stains are still a problem. Though it’s not quite as good as bought powder, I am looking forward to trying the addition of sard soap and a bar of castile soap. I will halve the powder I have left and add castile to one lot and sard to the other… Several weeks later there was not much difference in the quality of the wash. I did not find the addition of with bar of soap to be particularly more effective in a cold wash as we use.