A warming winter curry

Last weekend it was our friend Gavin's birthday and we contributed a lamb and eggplant curry to the festivities. You can read about how it all turned out on Gav's blog: the Greening of  Gavin. But I thought I'd share the recipe because it's one of our favourites.

This recipe is actually a Better Homes and Garden's recipe from sometime last year (very possibly the same time last year) and it's the perfect winter meal when you've got some time to let the seeds and spices and meat and vegetables just simmer away for an hour or more. It's served with a tomato salsa and yoghurt and rice and it's warming and fragrant and delicious.

Curry Ingredients

Besan (chickpea flour)

300mls natural yoghurt

600mls water

Olive oil

4 small eggplants, cut lengthways and cubed, salted and rinsed

900g lean diced lamb

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp fennel seeds

2 tsp fenugreek seeds

2 tblsp black mustard seeds

2 brown onions, sliced

5 garlic cloves, chopped

3 long, red chillies (or to taste)

2 tsp tumeric powder

1.5 tsp cumin powder

1.5 tsp chilli powder

3 tsp salt

8 cm piece ginger, grated

1 can chopped tomatoes

2 sprigs curry leaves

Method:

It might look like a long list of ingredients, but it's really not too complicated. You just need to get everything chopped and measured out before you start cooking.

Combine the water and chickpea flour and whisk lightly

Add yoghurt and whisk until smooth

Heat the olive oil in a heavy saucepan

Fry off the eggplant until brown

Place on absorbant paper and set aside

Add a bit more oil to the same saucepan

Fry up the seeds for about 1 and a half minutes

Add a bit more oil

Add the onions, garlic and chilli and cook for about 2minutes

Add the spices and salt and stir through for a minute

Add the ginger and stir through

I can smell the spices now...yum

Add the lamb, brown and cook covered for about 10 minutes. (You might need to turn the heat down a fraction)

Add the can tomatoes, yoghurt mixture, eggplant and curry leaves and then simmer for at least an hour.

Just needs to simmer for a while

Salsa Ingredients

1 tbsp brown sugar

juice of 2 limes

1 spanish onion, diced

4 fresh tomatoes, diced

1 tsp nigella seeds

1/2 tsp celery seeds

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

4 cm piece of ginger, grated or chopped

Easy  - mix all that stuff together and there's your salsa.

Serve the curry with some basmati rice, some extra yoghurt and the salsa.

A homemade version of Homous

We have recently discovered the art of sprouting...well I guess art is perhaps a small exaggeration when you consider that you pretty much soak some grain or legumes or beans overnight and let them drain for a few days and before you know it...there's your sprouts!

We've been sprouting chickpeas...and last night we turned our sprouted chickpeas into the most delicious, nutty homous you could imagine.

Here's what we started with...

I went to the local market, to one of those stalls that has bags and bags of all sorts of rice and grains and beans. The lady behind the counter was remarkably patient while I made up my mind, following me along the rows expectantly clutching a little bag just waiting to measure out what I wanted. I managed to resist the urge to buy a little bit of everything and came away with about 240g of chickpeas and 150g of mung beans (they are destined for the sprouting jar later today!)

You can buy sprouting kits but I think they're expensive when really all you need is a reasonably large jar and some mesh with a couple of elastic bands. The mesh bags you get oranges in work really well. We put about half the chickpeas into a jar and left them to soak overnight. You have to remember not to fill the jar too much with beans ... they expand to at least twice their original size. 

Sprouts are ready

Rinse them the next day and then turn the jar upside down at an angle so the water drains out throughout the day. A dish rack works well. Then all you do is rinse them every day for about two or three days and...voila...you have sprouted chickpeas. We left ours for three days and the sprouted bit was almost a centimetre long and I reckon we probably couldn't have let them go much longer. 

Getting the sprouts ready to blend

Out came the trusty food processer and in went our chickpeas, two or three tablespoons of tahini, a couple of garlic cloves, some lemon juice from about three lemons (with a bit of pulp thrown in too), a little bit of olive oil, a teaspoon of paprika and half a teaspoon of chilli powder (we love our chilli too). All of the ingredients are to taste really and we did plenty of that as we blended. If you don't like spicy things then you can leave out the paprika and chilli.

Hmmm...chilli

Blend until you get a smooth consistency, you may need to add a bit of water or olive oil to help out. What you end up with is a bit different from the stuff you buy in the shops. I think the sprouting makes the chickpeas really nutty with a tiny, tiny hint of sweetness. Ours tasted more...well...earthy...if that makes any sense. We just ate it with crackers...a lot of it with crackers. 

There is twice as much again in the fridge!

I've got a shed...

It came with the house. It's about 6m x 3m and rests on an uneven concrete slab. It also came with some shelves (and the obligatory half empty paint cans). We have since added some ... er... other stuff...

We haven't yet unpacked all our boxes (I don't often turn on the light - that way I can't tell how much stuff I still have to sort out)...

Anyway the point of this post wasn't really to show off how much junk we can fit into a shed...but what I really want to do is set it up so that a) it's tidy and b) it's actually usable. I have visions of beer and wine bubbling away, shelves stacked with preserves and vegetables stored for use over the winter months.

But...there is so often a but isn't there...our shed has an inordinate number of red back spiders and who knows what other species of arachnids are out there hiding in wait in the dark corners. There are small gaps between the roof and the walls that while they don't really let in too much water, they do let in the cold (not to mention the above mentioned arachnids).

So today I'm asking for advice. I don't really want to get someone in to spray the spiders, but I would love a way to clear them out...I'm also wondering if it's possible to insulate the walls or, at the very least, cover the gaps with something to keep out the cold.

Do you have a shed? I'd love to see some ideas for sheds if anyone has links to any posts or blogs. One thing that continues to amaze me since I started reading blogs, is that when I start thinking about something, someone invariably writes about it...it's almost uncanny.

So all thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Sea Guardians and sustainable seafood

I have great memories of fishing with my grandfather up near Gosford, catching Bream and Whiting and Flathead on my little hand reel. I remember helping him scale and gut the fish and then we would BBQ them afterwards, wrapping the fish in foil.

I even went prawning with my uncle once. We headed out at midnight, and I'm sure we hauled in netfuls of prawns but I don't know if that is just my childhood memories playing tricks on me or if our catch was really that good. I do remember boiling them up and eating some of them as soon as we got home...I can still remember the taste, they were so fresh.

When I grew up, I became a scuba diver and now I see fish in a slightly different light. Don't get me wrong...I still eat fish; one of my favourite meals is fish and chips, with fish (usually flathead tails) we buy from the market and crumb at home and chips we make with potatoes roasted with rosemary and salt.

But now I also get to hang out with them and see what they get up to. I get to see sponges and corals that can be hundreds of years old. I get to see sharks that slice through the water in a manner so incredibly graceful and powerful. I get to swim with loggerhead turtles and hear the whales sing through the water. I get to see a whole complete world that is beautiful beyond comparison. 

I also get to see the degradation of the environment. I've seen the northern pacific sea stars that are interlopers that ended up here from the hull of boats passing through and eat their way through our native ocean environment. I've seen coral bleaching. I haven't seen a hammerhead shark or a blue whale and I hope to get the chance to before they're gone.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society was started in the 1960s to stop an application to mine coral on the Great Barrier Reef. Today they focus on getting more areas declared as Marine National Parks, they aim to make our fisheries sustainable and to protect and recover our threatened marine species. Another key focus is to educate and advocate against human induced climate change.

Overfishing, pollution and coastal developments are killing our oceans quietly. It is estimated that over three quarters of the world's oceans...yes that's the world's not just one...is over-exploited or fished to its limits. Scientists believe that 90% of the large predatory fish (such as sharks) are gone, wiped out. The cruelty of some fishing techniques is terrible, shark finning sees sharks caught alive, their dorsal fins sliced off before they are thrown overboard to drown or get eaten alive by other fish as they sink to the bottom unable to swim. Long-lines are literally long lines stretching for kilometres, their baited hooks indescriminately taking any fish that comes along...and let's not even start on the charade of whaling for 'scientific' purposes that the Japanese conduct on an annual basis.

There are small things we can do to help. I became a Sea Guardian through the Marine Conservation Society. I want to give them some money on a monthly basis to help them continue the work they do.

Even if you don't have any money to spare, you can help by not buying endangered fish or only buying fish that are caught or farmed sustainably. The Society publishes Australia's Sustainable Seafood Guide:

You can buy the extended version from the website for $9.95 and you also get...

...no not six steak knives ... but a small business size version. I keep mine in my wallet.



This version briefly highlights the three steps to sustainable seafood:

1. Avoid overfished species (the full list is contained in this pocket guide).
2. Make a better choice (some examples are included).
3. Ask questions from your fish monger.

For example, Orange Roughy is overfished and is a big 'no thankyou' and is also sold under the name of deep sea perch or sea perch. (Orange Roughy are thought to have a life span of about 150 years and they don't start breeding until they hit 30 years old!)

I have seen these guides around and about ... so if you ask around you'll probably be able to pick one up somewhere.

The oceans make up about 72% of the surface of our planet...it's amazing how easily they are overlooked. Without them, we can't survive and I think it's important that we make them an essential part of our sustainable lifestyle...

A garden update

It's been a frustrating few weeks in regards to the garden. We've been busy on the weekends and I've been sick for the last few days so outside has really been left to fend for itself!

The side we spent so long clearing over Easter is still exactly how we left it...



but Sim picked up a couple of bags of manure down on the Bellarine Peninsula last week so we plan to mix in some of that soon. It's a mix of cow, chicken and sheep and the farmer said it was quite potent so we're hoping the two bags will go a fair way. 

The small bed that we planted out with a seedling 'Winter Harvest' selection from Bunnings (just to get us started) is going strong ... you can even see a cauliflower forming



- and that's from the plant that the dog dug up. Something has just started eating the leaves so I'm going to head out one dusk and see if I can see any little critters having some dinner where they shouldn't be.

We've started planting a few seedlings ... we have made the mistake of not labelling them as we go though so in some cases it's a surprise as to what we're going to get. We do know this punnet has sugar snap peas, oakleaf lettuce and leeks:



This punnet is a bit of a mystery...pretty sure there is parsley and pak choy but as for what else...Sim can't quite remember!



We've tried to plant a couple of scarlet runner beans, although I think it might be too cold, and not much has happened yet. I'm enjoying the surprise of not knowing quite what we're going to end up with but I think when we start trying to plant more seriously, it's not quite going to work. 

We have since invested in some labels for future plantings.

Hopefully we can get back out there soon...