We perhaps ate a little too much, but the food was so delicious, fresh and healthy and much of it directly harvested a few moments before we ate. I’m so pleased we created very little packaging with our shared meals today.

My christmas breakfast – Maia’s jaboticaba jam on Les’s choc-cherry sourdough with fruit…mmm

Evan’s fruity face on rye, chia and cinnamon porridge

Sourdough pumpkin and choc-cherry bread

Breakfast platter

Collecting eggs for lunch

Evan’s sisters help with the lunchtime harvest

A selection of ingredients for the eggy bake and salad.

I love collecting a leaf from this and a leaf from that. Our lunch bake included pumpkin leaf, red hibiscus spinach, brazilian spinach, comfrey, garlic chives, sorrel, vietnamese mint, perpetual spinach, kale, rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley, sacred basil and asparagus

Hugh loves eggy bake, but with out the ‘stuff’ on top! I always make a special section just for his ‘tongue-taste’.

The dairy free version also tasted delicious, I just added a few more herbs for extra flavour instead of cheese.

Maia’s collection for the salad.

These little cherry tomatoes were bursting with flavour and had such great firm texture. They made this very simple salad.

Sitting down to share our simple garden lunch, followed by Nanna’s Christmas Pudding from her Nanna’s traditional recipe.

The simplest home-made lemonade. Our own rainwater with bubbles and a splash of lemon juice from our tree.

Melting the beeswax for the salves.

Making personalised blends of the salves as Christmas presents.

Hundreds of bright blue dragonflies hovered close to the water’s surface and circled around us while we were testing out the kid’s new kayak and row boat today on the lake below our house.  The perfect end to a wonderful day – heading out to ride through the valley.

Maia reflected that she wanted Christmas everyday. Although she loves the gift-giving, she really just loved having everyone around.  Hugh was surprised at how much rubbish we created from even the simple and practical presents we shared. He suggested next year we only have one or two special unwrapped presents. I like his thinking.

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Christmas Eve here has been a wonderful family and community day. It starts with a visit to our wood fired organic bakery at the ecovillage. They make a special cherry chocolate sourdough – mmmmm.  I also picked up a loaf each of the pumpkin and olive and feta sourdoughs to go with the soup and cheeses tonight – a very simple but delicious and healthy family dinner.

At the Crystal Waters bakery this morning collecting our delicious organic sourdough bread and catching up with friends.

Crystal Waters Bakery – special Christmas loaf. We shared this with visitors who came to visit today.

The bakery cafe and produce swap

The bakery usually opens every Saturday and the community gets together for a cuppa and chat – a very important part of our community glue.  It was a special opening day today for the Christmas bake. An informal produce swap was happening too.

Maia at the bakery. Tthe baker, Les, has taught her and Hugh how to make his bread and gave them some starter culture. Their own bread is spectacular too. The grape vines covering the bakery trellis are just laden and create such a beautiful entrance to the space.

The children have been so excited today. To help them calm down while they waited for Nanna and the Aunties to arrive, they helped decorate the house, set the table and clean up.  I am so impressed with how they all pitched in.  Even Monty didn’t undo too many things!

One of Hugh’s favourite housekeeping jobs is vacuuming.

Maia loves setting the table and creating floral centrepieces, place names

Hugh put together his Gingerbread House. This is a project that he particularly wanted to do so I supported him in his making, but let him be creative with it. After a little cross bracing and redesign of roof angle, it held together nicely.  This is really the only part of our christmas fare that is so sugar-laden.

Hugh worked out the panel sizes and how it was all going to fit together. The sheer weight of the roof he made ended up collapsing the structure – a flat roof and cross-bracing helped it all come together.

Seven year old Hugh is very proud of his creation – we all can’t wait to Christmas day to try it.

We had a visit from a lovely couple from South Australia who have set up a local food market and sustainability festival in their community. We shared dreams and ideas for a sustainable future and promised to stay in touch.

I helped Maia create her dinner special and everyone loved it. Her soup flavour was spot on. She took her aunties outside to collect herbs for the herb cheese roll. Needless to say, that was devoured by all

Maia organised the menu for the Christmas eve meal. We enjoyed pumpkin soup, olive and fetta sourdough with herb cheese roll. Dessert was freshly baked homemade fruit mince tarts with thick pure Maleny cream. Simple but so delicious.

Monty loved the crowns from Nanna’s bon-bons – he made sure we all wore them.

Just before they went to bed, the kids wrote their special letters to Santa and the reindeers, and left out some organic carrots, milk and one of our home-made fruit mince tarts.

Writing letters to Santa

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In keeping with my desire to keep the Christmas party at our house a simple and enjoyable day where the focus is spending quality time with my family, I have another idea that will keep the main meal super simple.

There are lots of different food needs amongst our small extended family group – one is dairy free, another gluten free and me, vegetarian.  What one meal can deliciously and simply cater for all these needs?

The Solution…. the kids and I call it Eggy bake. 

Here’s the plan for Christmas lunch…

• The kids take the visitors to see the chooks with some scraps and exchange them for some eggs. (before we head out, we turn on the oven to preheat)
• On the way back through the garden, they collect leafy greens (such as kale, silver beet, land cress, hibiscus spinach, sorrel, comfrey), many herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme, parsley, garlic chives) and a chilli to spice it up a bit.  
• Back in the kitchen we’ll throw it all in food processor with a couple of extra things – carrots, mushrooms, onion, garlic… 
• Usually I add a little milk and soft cheese, but this time for the dairy-free aunty, we’ll add tofu. 
• We’ll pour the mixture into a baking dish keeping it quite thin so it will cook more quickly and pop it in the oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. 
• (For the young cheese-lovers, we could possibly pour the mix into two bowls and top dress just one with slices of cheese)

Oregano along the terrace wall – I harvest leaves from this plant a daily for a wide range of dishes. It’s always a good idea to have your favourite and high use herbs close and handy.

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Rosemary is delightful in a herbal oil – it lasts well too because of the low water content in the leaves.

• herbal oils – each person can create their unique blend picked fresh from the garden. I’ll provide the jars, oil, scissors, labels and of course, herbs – they just do the making.

• herbal tea blends – self-selected herb blend which can dry in the food drier before packing to take home. Similarly, I will provide the things they need to make it.

The very versatile Tulsi makes wonderful teas.

Other workshops I run involve making personalised blends of herbal teas, herbal oils, herbal vinegars, herbal balms and lotions. This one has been particularly popular. People who come along love creating their own special blends and are amazed at actually how simple this all can be.  

So hopefully the family will enjoy ranging through the garden harvesting herbs and making some lovely smelling personalised oils and teas to take home this Christmas day.

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Finally we headed to the other side of the ecovillage. Not only did this couple share with me a box of pristine bottles, but a couple of plant seedlings – a tamarind and a chilli bush. I had been wanting to catch up with them for a while to learn more about their method of making effective microorganisms (EM) from citrus and molasses – an alternative to Bokashi. I was given the full run through of the process and the promise of a bottle of EM when it is drained off next week. He is Thai and has spent a long time researching EM methods from Thailand and is going to translate it and share it. I’ll start some myself soon.

Chilli and Tamarind seedlings – in Thailand the new growing tips of tamarind trees are eaten as a fresh green

I finally came home with way more jars than I had ever expected, and a huge smile from all the connections and sharings made today. Tomorrow I will pass on the gift at the neighbourhood centre with an abundance of produce and jars of herb oils for the participants to gift at Christmas.

Preparing herb oils, salad dressings and salves at the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre.

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