Tag Archives: recipes

The plastic-free wrap-up: reflecting on reducing waste

02 Sunday Aug 2015

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The contents of the Plastic-free July dilemma bag: 494 grams of plastic waste.

A month ago we embarked on our attempt to avoid single-use plastics for the month of July. We were inspired to experiment with this waste-reduction challenge by our concern both about the plastics in our home and farm (the legacy of which we’re still hauling from our gullies), as well as the presence of plastics of all descriptions in the rockpools and high-tide marks of the nearby coast.

Collecting our ‘unavoidable’ plastic waste in a ‘dilemma’ bag, at the end of the month, our household total was 494 grams, down 288 grams from the previous month, although a significant portion of this month’s waste were leftovers from previous purchases or packaging from gifts from others! As the photo above shows, the volume of plastic waste was noticeably less. Continue reading →

Snag-a-Palooza: Celebrating with sausage!

02 Monday Feb 2015

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IMG_5603We celebrated our first sheep harvest with Snag-a-Palooza, our inaugural sausage-making fiesta. An entire beast was put through the mincer, so we invited a number of mutton-connoisseurs and aspiring snag-o-nauts to come and belt out some bangers. With several sausage fillers on the go, including a couple of 5kg hand-cranked machines hired from a butcher, the group made short work of the meat and had a vast amount of sausages ready in time for a barbeque lunch. Despite having armfuls of library books to prime ourselves, there were a few handy tricks we developed over the day to make the sausage-making a little smoother:

  • Don’t tie the end of the sausage while you’re making it to allow air pumped out by the sausage-maker to escape,
  • Allow about 10cm of empty casing either end of the sausage to allow for squeezing the filling to eliminate air bubbles,
  • Construct one big sausage, then make the links afterwards by pinching, then alternate your twists forwards and backwards for each small sausage,
  • Feed the casing out slowly, allowing the mince to inflate the casing with minimal air bubbles,
  • Avoid making sausages in your loungeroom, as explosions, followed by mince showers, are possible.
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Guiding fresh sausage into its spiral.

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Making the most of mutton

22 Thursday Jan 2015

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A mutton and lentil stew, with mutton consumed.

Back in December, we conducted our first slaughter from our flock, selecting some of our more senior ewes and a handful of lambs to be dispatched at the local meatworks. We’ve discovered a great deal of buried enthusiasm for the merits of good mutton. From the likes of Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall and Prince Charles with their Mutton Renaissance campaign, to various friends who fondly recalled being raised on the more mature meat.

At its best, mutton is renowned for being a fine grained meat, with a complexity of flavour reflective of its diversity of forage. With Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall describing mutton as the beef of the sheep world, fellow foodie Sophie Grigson has gushed over mutton as “beautifully tender, firm-grained, and with a rich but not aggressive flavour,” offering, in comparison to lamb, “more depth of flavour, a more complex rounded taste, more ‘umami’, if you like.” Continue reading →