Winter well-and-truly struck Melbourne last week.  It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a “proper” winter, cold and drizzly, requiring stew and stodge to keep the inner fires burning.

Last Sunday I wanted a cup of tea and a pikelet or  two.  Warm liquid, a delicious stodge! While I was mixing up a batch, I noticed the organic oats I’d bought a few weeks ago.  Hmm.. Oaten Pikelets?  yes please.

I cooked the whole batch, and froze the extras which became my “toaster porridge” during the week, toasted, served with some poached quince and yogurt.

So good, I made a batch today purely for breakfast purposes!  I also added some spelt flakes.  for extra wholegrain goodness.

Makes about 10 toaster-sized ovals.

1½ cups rolled oats

1 cup spelt flakes (or use all oats)

¾ cup SR flour

½ teaspoon baking power

¼ cup caster sugar

¾ cup milk

2 eggs lightly beaten

90g butter, melted

splash of vanilla extract

pinch of salt.

In a food processor, whiz 2 cups of oats &/or spelt flakes until they are fine.  Add them to a bowl, with the unprocessed oats, the flour, baking powder and sugar.  Stir together. Melt butter gently.  Add eggs and butter and half the milk, stir to combine, adding extra milk as you go.  You want a thick consistency like cream.  It’s hard to tell how much milk the oats will soak up, so you may need to add more/less to make a good pouring consistency.   Add vanilla and salt to taste.

Stand at least 20 mins, adjust consistency.  Heat a heavy bottomed frypan over a medium heat.  Swirl some butter in a cook the pikelets until golden brown.

Freeze between pieces of freezer wrap and toast to serve!

A couple of weeks ago I went to the markets with friend Mellie, half of Tummyrumbles. We spied “tamed nettles” lovingly picked off their stems and bagged for us by one of the stall holder’s sons as his “pin money” job.  I quietly suggested that nettle gnocchi may have to be in order to Mellie.  I’ve seen her gnocchi posts, and was hoping she’d pick up the hint (and some nettles!).  She did, and she bought nettles and invited me over to dinner.  To complete the trifecta, she has now also graciously passed on the recipe, in the form of a guest post.  Thanks for the gnocchi Mellie!  Enjoy the post everyone.

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Another of the four Melbourne Community Farmer’s Markets, accredited, friendly and as one I only occasionally visit, a few stalls that are less familiar to me.  Here’s my haul.

Brussels Sprouts on the stem from Sarah of Peter Schreurs & Sons as she says, from the home garden.  They are also bringing “tamed” nettles to market as well – picked over and in a small plastic bag.  They bring insome really interesting vegies from “the home patch”, and it’s no secret that they grow fantastic, sweet leeks.

Gypsy Pig sausages (English Breakfast with a bit of nutmeg in them) and flavoured mince, which is sometimes available as patties.  I think I will do some meatballs with the mince.

My old favourite Sunny Ridge strawberries, a few weeks left of strawbs this season. These are Albions again.

I’m not purchased Family Homestay free range eggs before – but the passion of the woman selling them was quite encouraging!  They are farmed out Bacchus Marsh way, and there is lots of info on their website.   She highlighted some proposed changes to the free range egg farming criteria to allow a greater density of birds. I’m looking into this a bit more as well as the current trend to advertise cage-raised chickens (huh??).

I’ve mentioned before that I am concerned about the effect it could have if “Big Business” respond to consumer demands for cruelty free  / free range / organic products.  How can you maintain the current standards and supply many times more produce?  Another day; another post.

And some more Schulz’s Organic Milk and Cream; and some more fabulous “easy peel” chestnuts, the variety is Gourmet Lady.

Did you go to a Farmers’ Market today?  If you did, what did you buy?

I often cook for one or two mouths, and I don’t really love eating leftovers the next day for work .. so I have a freezer full of odds and sods, bits and pieces, and “that’ll come in handy for later”.  Also, I shop at Farmers’s Markets a lot, and you can’t always plan your meals in advance, nor buy the exact amount you need. You have to “go with the flow” somewhat.

So … I’m getting a pretty full freezer.  I’m about to stuff a kilo of chestnuts into it, so I need to clean it out and use the food.

Here’s what I’ve got:

1. 1/2 pack chow mein noodles
2. 4 slices fruit toast
3. 12 small fetta filo pastries
4. 9 chicken and ginger dumplings
5. 5 sheets shortcrust pastry
6. 1 pack Careme sweet shortcrust pastry
7. Organic Oats
8. 800g of shredded cheese (lord knows!)
9. 1 punnet organic blueberries
10. 3 punnets mixed raspberries, strawberries and blueberries
11. 250g Fernleigh Farms eye bacon
12. 100g short cut bacon
13. 250g Fernleigh Farms ham
14. 2 x serves pumpkin lasagne
15. 3 x serves spinach and ricotta cannelloni
16. 2 vegie burgers
17. 1.1 litre’s of chicken stock (with another 2 litres in the fridge)
18. 1 serve of moroccan chicken stew
19. 1 home made pork and fennel sausage roll
20. 6 Pacdon English Pork Sausages
21. couple of dozen egg whites (macarons?)
22. 3 tablespoons lime juice
23. lime zest
24. pulp of 12 passionfruit
25. 300 ml pork stock.
26. 200ml Chang’s Pork Liqueur
27. Butter, various
28. Herbs, kaffir lime leaves etc, various
29. 500g lamb fillet
30. 500g beef mince

So, give me inspiration – make a combination, randomly or with some thought attached.  Help me to plough through this list, and this freezer.

(thanks but no, I don’t need any help “using up” the bottle of Grey Goose hiding in there… ta)

Part of what I did with my market haul this weekend.

2 – 3 chicken frames (carcasses)

2 – 3 cloves garlic, peeled and halved

2 medium brown onions peeled and sliced roughly

2  carrots chopped roughly

2 sticks of celery chopped roughly

1 piece of lemon zest

2 – 3 bay leaves

parsley stalks

6 peppercorns

Place everything in a large stockpot and cover with cold water. Bring gently to a simmer, skimming the surface of the stock regularly.  Leave at a gentle simmer for 3 hours or so.  Strain and discard all solids.  Cool stock and refrigerate.  Remove any fat that has risen. Freeze in 1 cup portions.

If you want a richer, darker stock, roast frames and bones for 20 mins or so at 180 degrees before making stock.

Anorak, scarf, produce bags and carry bags – CHECK!

It got a bit muddy as they morning progressed, but it was heartening to see the line up of folk waiting when I got there just before 8:00 am, and a bit frightening to see the guy in front of my wearing no shoes, at all.

Here’s a list of what I brought home with me (an anti-shopping list if you will)

• 5 large beetroot
• 3 small leeks from Sarah.
• 1 large bunch of Trevor’s rhubarb
• 6 Mildura Oranges
• 1 kg of “Easy Peel” chestnuts
• 1 punnet of SunnyRidge Strawberries
• 1 bag of Bellengen organics loose garlic cloves
• a Slice of Holy Goat La Luna ring from Anne Marie
• Bunch of Parsley and bunch of bay leaves from Jill and Andrew
• Bag of chicken frames and 500g Chicken thighs from Milawa Chicken
• 1 litre of milk, 250ml cream, and 500ml yogurt from Schulz Organic Milk
• 12 Champion variety quinces from John “The Quince Man”, to celebrate the end of the quinces. I do hope we see John and his quinces next year, these were the best I’ve ever eaten.

Now to feed myself for the next week.

I’ve roasted the beetroot and skinned them.  They are sitting in the fridge.

• Beetroot, walnut and goat’s cheese salad
• Part of a steak sandwich (maybe – do I have steak anywhere?)
• Perhaps some Borsch?
• Beetroot and chocolate muffins maybe?

Chicken

• Frames and parsley wil go into stock.
• Thighs will become chicken soup (with the stock) and chicken and noodles.

Rhubarb will go into a breakfast crumble with some of the berries I have in the freezer, to be eaten with some lovely Schulz’s Yogurt for breakfast on these chilly mornings.

Chestnuts, having proven themselves to be truly “easy peel” were

• roasted and eaten with a bit of salt
• Sauteed with some Gypsy Pig streaky bacon and some Brussels Sprouts to have with soup for dinner
• Will be roasted for 20 mins at 200º and peeled, then frozen for further adventures.

The strawberries will be eaten with the cream over the next 3 nights as dessert.  It doesn’t do to try to keep the strawbs this time of year, I’m just happy to see them, and smell them. Forgot to ask what variety these are, last market they were Albions.

I’ll make some chicken soup with the Milawa chicken frames, and thighs, Sarah’s leeks and Jill and Andrew’s parsley (the stalks into the stock pot along with their fresh bay leaves)

The oranges will come to work with me to starve off office colds and afternoon snacks.

The quinces will get poached for 4 – 6 hours at 140º in a light sugar syrup with a star anise, some vanilla and a bay leaf.  These will then keep until next week to top porridge and have warm for dessert maybe?

The garlic and the milk will just get used during the week.

What would you make with my haul?  What did you buy this week that looked great!

Yes, Food Inc is disturbing.  But not so horrible that you can’t watch it. Yes it is a bit depressing, but you can feel morally superior because “that’s not how we do things in Australia” … yet.

I did think I’d heard all this before, I’ve read Omnivores Dilemma, I’ve read Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal Vegetable …Miracle”; I shop at Farmers’ Markets; I hate large scale shopping centres of any kind;  I encourage others to do the same (mostly by taking bowls of delicious “just picked – no cool room” strawberries to work); what was here for me?

Well, I needed to see this film.  I needed to say that I had sat through it, I needed to strengthen my backbone and be a bit tougher with myself. I needed to see more of Joel Salatin.

Tammi’s fantastic post on listening to Joel Salatin at the Lake House in Daylesford reminded me of some of the things I said I would do.  See, I gutted chickens for a while to help pay for Uni.  I was a vegetarian for 16 years. I don’t wear fur, don’t anthropomorphise animals, don’t think that humans are superior to anything else living on this planet, I’m OK.  Surely.  But I realised that I can, and should, do more.

The ABC’s Landline program did a story on Joel’s recent trip to Oz, not his first.  What struck me was that many of the folk in the audience at the Lake House were producers.  Maybe they are right, maybe we, as consumers, just have to ask for it? It’s on iView.  Go have a look.

But I want to do more, I want to do more because I’m scared of WalMart stocking organic yogurt.  Just like I’m scared of McDonalds promising to use free-range eggs. There aren’t anywhere near enough free range eggs produce in Australia to supply McDonalds.  So what happens then?

Heck, I got nervous when I read about a well known chef talking about how great Schulz’s Organic Milk is.  That’s the milk I buy at my local Farmers’ Market.  I know Simon.  What’s going to happen if “mega-famous chef” builds a huge amount of demand for Simon’s milk?

Here are a few things I’m going to do/be better at as a result of having my conscience pricked:-

• Don’t waste food – if you buy it, use it!   I think this is the number one thing to work on.  It costs more than just what you spend to get that food to you, think of the fuel to move it, the paper to wrap it, the human power to prepare it.  And if that food has come from an animal, it may not have have a nice life, or death. Respect it and don’t waste it.
• Now that I’m not wasting food, I’m going to buy more from my farmers’ market.  I typically buy most of my veg there, but I’m going to eat less meat, and buy it from someone I know. I’m going to ask about how they raise their meat, how they kill their meat, how far they transport it.  I’m going to let the person how provides me with meat know that I appreciate what they are doing.
• I’m going to insist on grass-fed steak (at a minimum) if I order steak in a restaurant, and definitely buy grass fed beef for home.
• I’m going to join Slow Food.  I am a vocal supporter of raw milk, and raw milk cheese – why not go one step further.
• I’m going to keep on introducing people to their local Farmers’ Markets, by posts on this blog, and by good old one-on-one encouragement.
• I’m going to follow Michael Pollan on twitter @michaelpollan and read his website.
• I’m going to keep an eye on the Food Labelling Review that is going on at the moment.  I  wrote to my local members, but I’m going to keep reading the submissions and create noise if I don’t like what I read.
• I’m going to keep searching for local, accountable food.

As consumers, we’re not powerless.  We need to ask for what we want. Ask.

What can you do?

Finally with a recognisable shopfront we can tell you a bit more about new bar/cafe/restaurant (?) Jorg.

As of Tuesday 1st June they aren’t open yet, but it doesn’t look like it’s far off.

“Jacques Reymond’s head chef, Michael Smith, and Church Street Enoteca’s sous chef, Bryce Bernhardt, have named their informal European venture in North Fitzroy Jorg.”  According to The Age, and the were to open around Easter.  We’ve been waiting for a sign of where they were going.  I thought it was what turned into Musterhause, Then I noticed that Glitch has closed and is being refurned, but no, it’s turned up in the old fruit and veg shop, which was a video and discount store before that, next to the new premises for The Signing Whale and two doors down from my favourite little bar, Deco.   Yes Fitztroyalty, there is an end in sight!

Jorg

203 St Georges Road

North Fitzroy  3068

Chestnut and Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

(serves 4 for entree)

400 grams cooked and peeled chestnuts

200 grams jerusalem artichokes roasted for about 20mins in duck or pork fat until soft

200 grams shallots, finely diced

2 garlic gloves finely sliced

Thyme sprigs

Bay leaves

60ml brandy

Water

Milk

Seasoning

Pancetta or good quality bacon

The main ingredients

In a medium size saucepan melt a knob of butter and add some olive oil.  Add the shallots and fry until translucent, add garlic and cook for a few minutes.

Add jerusalem artichokes and chestnuts (reserve 3 chestnuts for garnish) and stir well.  Add 1 – 2 bay leaves, a sprig of thyme, 60 ml Brandy and water to just cover.  Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer, covered until everything is soft (45 – 60 mins)

Not the most attractive soup

Use a hand blender or a Mouli to puree the soup.  I used a Mouli as Iknew I’d left quite a few of the inner shells on the chestnuts and the Mouli would separate these our for me.  Pass the puree through a sieve into the rinsed pan and warm through before tasting and adjusting seasoning.  Add up to 1/2 cup of milk or cream to thin the soup to the preferred consistency.

Delicious garnishes

Take 12 thing slices of pancetta  about 10 cm long and fry gently in a small frypan to render the fat and crisp the pancetta.

Remove and drain well.  Fry thin slices of the reserved chestnuts for a few minutes until they are crispy.  Remove and drain.

Serve with a few bits of pancetta, some chestnuts and a sprig on thyme as garnish.

Matt says ” I add the roasted Jerusalem Artichokes to give a little more earthiness to the soup. Try Cheesenutz in Northern Victoria for ready peeled chestnuts”

It’s a delicious soup and it’s a great tip – I really don’t love peeling chestnuts.  Unfortunately they are all sold out this year.

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