PermaCooking – Meat, Marmalade and My Execution Meal
Animal Processing, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes — by Marcelo Severo August 4, 2010
The Meat Situation
The meat situation is this – we’ve got a good part of a cow in the freezer, a couple of lambs coming along, and lots of birds that need processing. For the vegetarians out there, I offer you potato gnocci later on for dinner (without the beef ragu of course) and cumquat marmalade on sourdough toast for morning tea. For now though, let me indulge the more carnivorous of you with….
Comments (6)PermaCooking – Your Goose is Cooked
Animal Processing, Bird Life, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Livestock, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes — by Marcelo Severo July 29, 2010
One of several Zaytuna Farm geese
All photographs © Craig Mackintosh except where credited otherwise
We killed a goose at Zaytuna Farm the other day and by my count we served out 60+ student meals from it, plus two day’s worth of wonderful breakfasts for the staff. Not a bad effort I thought. Pretty good use of a bird. Here’s what we did….
Comments (2)Permacooking
Animal Processing, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes — by Marcelo Severo July 27, 2010
The farmer and the cook with Ethiopian Cabbage
First Week
I’ve just finished my first week working as the farm cook for the Permaculture Research Institute at Zaytuna Farm and already it’s been an amazing experience. To be able to cook at this wonderful and dynamic farm is a delight for all the gastronomical senses. If fresh, seasonal, local, delicious and nutritious ingredients are what good food is all about then consider this….
Comments (3)PDC Interview, Part 3: Chef Aureliano
Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Health & Disease, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes — by Harry Schnur July 26, 2010
Photo copyright © Craig Mackintosh
Pumpkins at Zaytuna Farm
Harry Schnur from Taipei, Taiwan, recently completed his PDC with Geoff Lawton at Zaytuna Farm.
He has two shows on the only English community radio station in the region and did a series of interviews for one of his shows during his time at the farm.
Below is part 3, an interview with Chef Aureliano about his experiences cooking fresh, seasonal food at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm. Click play to listen!
PDC Interview, Part 3: Chef AurelianoComments (0)
Home Cheese-Making DVD Hits the Road!
Animal Processing, DVDs/Books, Fermenting, Livestock, News, Processing & Food Preservation — by Ecofilms July 8, 2010
Okay, it’s taken a while and we were expecting to release this title last year. We even had a few people ask for it for last year’s Christmas, but the truth is we took too long to finish it. So now it’s here, ready to go! Elisabeth Fekonia’s Home Cheesemaking and All Things Dairy DVD has finally been released!
Comments (13)How to Make a Home Made Bee Hive
Insects, Processing & Food Preservation, Urban Projects — by Peter Dilley June 21, 2010
The photograph above is of my home made bee hive. This is the ultimate beginner bee hive and the one I highly recommend you consider. Its benefits are that it is horizontal and not vertical so you don’t break your back lifting heavy boxes. The legs are cut to make the top of the hive at your own waist level. Now you can tend your bees without much bending and in a very comfortable relaxed state. This hive does not use bee frames. Instead of forcing bees to make comb cells the size we humans want, bees in the hive design I run build their entire comb themselves with their own wax (store bought wax has chemicals and pesticides treatment that stores in the wax fat, so your bees get medication even if you don’t want them to, or other potential diseases). Because the bees make all their own wax you get lots of honey like with traditional hives but you also get lots of wax. This is perfect for the homestead as you can make so many useful things from wax – from furniture and wood polishes, to candles, and so on! This hive is also perfect for beginners because you don’t have to buy thousands of dollars of honey extraction equipment. I bought a bread knife from a dollar shop and use that to harvest comb.
Comments (10)Solar Cookers
Energy Systems, Processing & Food Preservation — by Ecofilms June 11, 2010
While we were shooting the Permaculture Soils video with Geoff Lawton, we noticed an array of shiny solar cookers being assembled on the jetty at Zaytuna Farm. Barb Ford from Brisbane was cooking the afternoon lunch for the woofers and students on the farm.
Taking a break from our filming, we asked Barb to give us a run down on the various cookers she had on display and explain their uses. Not all Solar Cookers are the same. Some act as ovens whilst others act as direct burners.
Comments (6)Life at Zaytuna – Potato Storage Tip
Food Plants - Perennial, Processing & Food Preservation — by Craig Mackintosh June 21, 2009
Mmm…. I don’t know about you, but potatoes are one of my favourite foods. Here at Zaytuna we were a tad late in potato planting, so we’re having to cover our potato rows at night – as even here in the sub-tropics we’re getting some winter frosts. A couple more weeks and we should have a good crop to harvest – which will add to all the sweet potatoes and pumpkins we’ve already gleaned from the soil.
Anyway, here’s a tip on storing seed potatoes for future planting – simply layer them in a container with dry sawdust. Easy.
Comments (2)How to Turn Astringent Persimmons into Enchanting Natural Confections, Japanese Style
Food Plants - Perennial, Processing & Food Preservation, Trees — by Cecilia Macaulay April 20, 2009
This week I’m shopping for a persimmon tree for the Edible Japanese Garden I’m creating. Of course I will be planting a sweet, rather than an astringent, or ’shibui’* persimmon. The sweet ones, such as Fuyu, are squat-shaped, and can be eaten either crunchy or yielding. The long-shaped Hachiya variety, the ones Aussies first planted before we knew better (sorry Hachiya), are awfully ’shibui’. You have to wait until they become syrupy-ripe before eating, otherwise, biting into one will give you that ‘cotton-wool-in-the-mouth’ reaction. Awful. I find slush and string almost as unattractive as shibui, and so too it seems, do the Japanese. They usually hang the autumn harvest under the eaves, and let the dry winter air transform them into something like enchanted dried apricots: intense, chewy, and frosted in sugar crystals. ‘Hoshi Gaki’, in Japanese.
Jerusalem Artichokes – like Diamonds, are Forever
Food Plants - Perennial, Processing & Food Preservation — by Margaret Lynch December 30, 2008
PIJ #54; March – May 1995; page 47
Margaret Lynch explains how to grow, store and prepare the edible section of what is a truly prolific plant.
Helianthus tuberosus is an annual which will tolerate most conditions. Commonly called Jerusalem artichoke, it is known in its native America as Sunroot. Other names include Sunchoke and Suntuber. It is not to be confused with the globe artichoke, Cynara scolymus, which is a thistle with edible flower-buds.
Suntuber foliage is said to be good fodder. Rapid growth makes it an excellent summer shade, screen, or windbreak. It may also have potential in paper-making. The plant produces a substance which inhibits growth in nearby plants, so don’t use the green foliage for mulch.
Comments (4)Strange Fruit
Consumerism, Food Plants - Perennial, Health & Disease, Processing & Food Preservation, Trees — by George Monbiot September 5, 2008
A hard commercial logic dictates that the only way to get good fruit today is to grow your own.
by George Monbiot – journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
I feel almost shy about writing this column. It contains no revelations, no call to arms. No one gets savaged: well, only mildly. The subject is almost inconsequential. Yet it has become an obsession which, at this time of year, forbids me to concentrate for long on anything else.
A Refrigerator that Runs Without Electricity
Community Projects, Processing & Food Preservation — by Craig Mackintosh August 11, 2008
Sometimes there are simple solutions to universal needs that don’t require coal fired electricity, fossil fuels, or even solar panels or wind turbines.
Around a third of the world’s population have no access to electricity. If you’re like me, you’ve spent your entire life being able to plug in. Do we ever give a thought to what life would be like if the various appliances we’ve come to rely on were to suddenly stop working? One of the most energy guzzling appliances in our carbon footprint portfolio is the refrigerator. But, unplug it, and the quality of your life will suddenly deteriorate. Take that thought, and imagine living in a hot dry country in Africa, without electricity, where food quickly wilts and rots in the sun, aided by onslaughts of flies.
One modern day genius, mindful of this basic need to preserve food, has solved the problem for many. Mohammed Bah Abba, a Nigerian teacher, invented the ‘device’ — a refrigerator that doesn’t require electricity!
Comments (28)
