More Solar Cooking (and a giveaway)

With the mid-to-high 30 degree cloudless days we are having here on the west coast at the moment, there are so many opportunities to get the sun oven out.

Dried fruit is a bit of a favourite as it can be snacked on at any time in the drying process.

I came across a great step-by-step tutorial for making a pizza box solar cooker. Super simple and just in time to fill in the last week of the Australian summer holidays. Make sure to let me know if you have a go.

If you live around Perth you might even be interested in a workshop being run at the Lockridge Community Garden. I am on their mailing list and received this earlier in the week.

Sunday 3rd Feb

Solar Oven Cooking

Come & see how to cook in & build a solar oven. Free energy to cook your food at home or when camping is very handy so you won't want to miss this one. Taste tests included!

- 10:30am - 12 noon

- Cost $5 p/p

- cnr Arbon way & Diana Crescent, Lockridge

- Fresh homemade pizzas from the Pizza Oven & sausage sizzle on the day

On another note, this blog has just turned two and this happens to be the 200th post. It has been such a great way to connect with people as well as being a way to diarise what we are doing to try to live a little greener.

So time for the giveaway.

I am giving away a copy of Homemade Pantry by Alana from Eating From the Ground Up. You may remember I made the mustard from here. Delicious!

Just leave a comment in this post and I will randomly select a winner on Friday 1 Feb at 9am Perth time. I will send this anywhere in the world.

Take care and thanks for reading.

Making the Most of Summer

Perth is a very sunny city. Even on the cooler days in winter, the sun is still out there doing its thing.

The 'Mouse House' is a late 1960s place that is quite small and once the summer heat gets in, it can become very uncomfortable. Knowing this, very little cooking takes place over the warmer months, where we tend to rely fairly heavily on the barbecue instead.

I had read about solar cooking at Eat at Dixiebelle's and seen one in action at the Royal Show and was very excited at the idea of being about to cook and bake throughout the Perth heat without heating the house. The possibility of being able to dehydrate food was also great. The experiences I have had with dehydrating (here and here) were really rewarding but I felt guilty with running an appliance for about 12 hours.

After a lot of research I decided on a Global Sun Oven. Although these are transported from the U.S., the distributor was only a suburb away so I was about to head over to their house and have a good look and a chat.

I was so excited about getting the oven that I put it to work straight away. What better way to test an oven that to cook something chocolatey.

The next day I thought that I should start having a look at some different bread recipes. Bread from the local bakery is really tasteless and filled with air, something that I just couldn't handle eating all summer. I found a great recipe for Portuguese White Bread, but do you think I can remember where I saved the recipe?

Our first sun oven bread loaf. Delicious.

On a trip down south, I bought a huge box of apricots from a road side stall in Mount Barker for $15. When we returned home the solar oven was again facing skyward. (The difference between cooking and dehydrating is that the lid is clamped down during cooking and when dehydrating, the lid sits on top of the latches to let the air escape.)

Unfortunately I didn't get around to taking any photos of the dried apricots before they were all eaten. We have also been really happy with the results from the apples, pear and nectarines. Yum.

Over the last few weeks we have had the oven out just about every day either cooking or dehydrating.

I thought I would show you the results of today's cooking. I have been using this recipe a lot lately as I wanted to make white bread recipes first to experiment with the oven. I split the mix in half and used half as a focaccia and the other as a small loaf.

And the house is pretty cool.

Take care

Getting Ready for Christmas - Spiced Chickpeas

I am once again joining in with Fiona and her homemade Christmas series.

As I was sitting down having a bit of lunch, searching for some after school snack inspiration, I came across this great recipe that I thought would make a fabulous Christmas entertaining snack (to accompany a shandy) or gift.

The recipe is really easy and would look great in a glass jar.

I am not the most patient person in the world so for this version I used tinned chickpeas. When I make these next time, I will plan it all much better and rehydrate the peas myself. I am sure the taste would be even nuttier.

How are your Christmas preparations coming along?

Take care

Getting Ready for Christmas - Tealight Holders

I am joining in with Fiona again but am running a little late.

A couple of months ago an email landed in my inbox asking for people who would be interested in running an activity for an Earthcarers Christmas workshop. The idea being to demonstrate how inexpensive gifts could be made fairly easily. I remembered a Mothers' Day activity I ran last year and thought this would make a great Christmas gift. (Just to let you know that I found this over at Noodlehead - make sure to check out all of the fabulous tutorials)

The first part of the task was to get hold of timber. Buying new timber was never an option so I needed to start thinking about how I would get hold of the materials. I tried a couple of salvage yards but they only really seemed to have jarrah, which is a really hard wood, too hard for this activity. I was sent from one possibility to another and ended up at a sawmill. They let me drive up to a pile of offcuts at the back of their yard and fill the boot.

I chose the pieces that I thought would be the easiest to use and headed over to see Dad. He is one of those mechanically minded people who can build amazing things. He has the right tool for just about any job, as well as the skills to go with it. Every time I use his tools, it reminds me that I want to read What's Mine is Yours.

He cut the pieces to square the corners and then taught me to sand and router the blocks. It was such a lovely way to spent time together in him man cave.

So last Saturday I loaded his ute and headed to the Karrinyup Community Centre. 

It was a slow start to the morning so I decided to use the time to mark where the holes needed to be drilled. This preparation made the 'making' time of the activity a little shorter and more people managed to make a tealight holder.

Dad suggested we put a piece of tape on the 38mm spade-bit drill to the depth of the candle. This way we knew when to stop drilling and the candle would sit at the right height.

All that was really needed then was to sand the holes and either stain or oil the timber.

This piece was oiled. I am not sure what the timber was but with the oiling it looked absolutely beautiful.

 This is one that I had prepared earlier to show what they look like lit. I had stained this one with a jarrah stain.

It was such a great day and thankfully the rain didn't get in our way too much.

Have your Christmas preparations started yet?

Take care

Getting Ready for Christmas - Peppermint Lip Balm

It is incredible how December 25 just seems to sneak up each year. This year I am planning to be a little more organised. Some Christmas preparedness inspiration from Fiona at Arbordale Farm was just the kickstart I needed.

I don't get too wrapped up in the consumerism of the day as I can generally count the gifts I exchange on one hand. This year is a little different as we will be catching up with parts of the family who usually celebrate the day in many different cities around the world. This will be the first time in 8 years that we have all been together. I don't want to be buying 'stuff' for the sake of it as I find it a waste of effort and money. I want the gifts to be useful and thoughtful and homemade as much as possible.

My little mouse and I tried out a recipe for lip balm I think you might like. This will make great gifts as these are easy to make and easy to transport. (We also managed a bit of 'killing two birds..." as this will also be used as part of little mouse's school project).

We followed a recipe that intrigued me a couple of years ago from SouleMama. At the time, my head was still in a 'this would be way too hard' mindset. I can't believe I waited to long to give it a go.

The ingredients are pretty straight forward and all I needed to get hold of was the beeswax. This I easily tracked down at the Stirling Farmer's Market.

We measured all of the ingredients and made a double boiler using a glass bowl and a saucepan.

The coconut oil, beeswax and honey were all melted together.

Once melted, the peppermint drops were added. We didn't add any lipstick for colour as we were looking for something fairly neutral.

I picked up the tin from a shop in Berlin after I had planned to do something similar last year but I just never seemed to get around to it.

Once the mix cooled and hardened, we thought we would all a peppermint leaf to the top.

This was so much fun to make and the finished product is wonderful. It feels so lovely on your lips.

Take care

Hey, Fellow Chicken-Loving Science Nerds

One of the kiddoes came home telling me about this today so I thought I would share.

From Behind the News 23.10.12 Chook Science

Gotta love a kid who questions.

Take care

Conscious Living

I spent a lovely few hours on Saturday at the Earthcarers stall at the Conscious Living Expo. It was lovely to once again be able to talk to people who are interested in living sustainably.

There was an example of worm farming using polystyrene boxes,

how to make polystyrene wicking boxes,

as well as general composting, waste reduction and doggy poo composting.

There is so much interest out there and many people generally want some information and encouragement to get started in taking that first step.

One small step at a time.

Take care