Hooray for herbs

Growing your own herbs always seems to make it onto the 'Top 10 beginners tips for sustainable living' tips  but sometimes I wonder whether chucking a few leaves on your plate is having any measurable impact. Its hardly achieving self sufficiency but when you do consider the cost every time you spend $3 on a bunch of herbs at the supermarket, combined with the footprint of transport, refrigeration, the little plastic sleeve and the inevitable waste that comes at the end it all does have the potential to add up.
On Saturday night I made the most of my herbs and roasted a chicken (free range of course) using Kylie Kwong's 'Radical Roast Chicken' recipe. The recipe combines a stuffing of fresh herbs- tarragon (plus I add thyme for some extra flavour)- and tops off the chicken with torn bay leaves, crushed garlic and a spring or two of rosemary. All of these picked freshly from the garden. Unfortunately my visit to the tarragon pot seemed to confirm suspicions that something was up- recently I have found bits and pieces wilted and broken. At first I though not enough water and then too much- I wondered if the girls had been involved or if it was other birds. Despite covering up the pot to protect the last few stems this is what I came back to yesterday........

I am now convinced its smaller critters at work....... I have come to the conclusion that growing things in pots needs to follow the same theory as garden with regular 'crop rotation' to minimize pests taking control. So I am planning to re-pot this baby  with some new soil on the weekend. I will give the dirt to the girls to poke around in, and give it break from growing.

A tricky time of year

It’s a tricky time of year to take on the challenge of a waste free kitchen. The holiday season brings unexpected social outings and activities and the warmer weather (although you wouldn’t believe it this week) tends to encourage a less structured and flexible routine. It doesn’t help that the market is heaving with delicious seasonal produce at bargain prices.

So this week I focused my efforts less on my garden challenge and more on what to do with everything in my fridge.

I generally have a set way that I plan my cooking and shopping for the week ahead. I set menus Saturday through to Thursday, with Friday designated 'take it as it comes'. More often than not it’s a case of taking a pizza base and adding a home made topping. This week it's left over salami, with onions, capsicum and home grown tomatoes.  Unfortunately I made the sad discovery of  a tub of Mt Zero olives I bought before Christmas- but have now gone mouldy - such a waste!

In addition I always make sure I have at least one meal that can be flexible and held over to the following week if things come up.  A favourite is Thai Curry as I usually have some chicken in the freezer and just use whatever veg is around (onions, carrots and capsicum keep – so they are staples in my cupboard and fridge). This week I made Penang curry with some left over roo fillet that was languishing in the freezer.

This week I also decided to get back into my after work swimming routine so I need to ensure there was one meal that only needed to be heated and ready to serve. A perfect dish is Karen Martini's fantastic apricot chicken recipe (taken from the Age Sunday Life magazine). Dry roasting coriander and  cumin, grinding the spice mix and browning the chicken takes a little time so it’s a great dish to cook on weekend and enjoy the leftovers mid week. It also gave me an opportunity to try out our new season chillies. I will confess I am not responsible for chili growing – as that’s my partner Glenn’s job. Last year he didn't get much joy with the seed saved chillies given last year’s mild growing season so  it was off Bunnings and Masters for some new seedlings. I approached the chillies labelled ‘Kaysan’ with a certain degree of caution but turns out despite the label marked  hot they were no hotter than the green chillies I normally buy. I am looking forward to making some of Hasan M’Souli’s  green harissa soon.