It reminds me why I love my garden, chickens and local organic sourdough baker so much!

Can you guess what this list of ingredients is. Yes, it is a simple egg and lettuce sandwich. Oh dear!

What travel food do you pack?

To add further motivation to taking good food with you (as well as avoiding packaging), watch to this interview that went live today. My friend Cyndi O’Meara was in Studio 10 talking about the impact of food on our gut-brain health with Ita Buttrose and the panel. Her interview, linked below, is definitely worth watching. All the more reason to grow our own fresh real food and eat as nature intended.

Let’s talk about your Gut-Brain health

The post That’s way too many ingredients! Can you guess what it is? appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

‘Eggy bake’ is a common meal in our house and one of our all-time favorites – named by the kids.

Eggy bake – this version with grated cheese on top from local cheesery. Typically we eat it plain. Rarely we have leftovers.

 

Another household favourite is pumpkin soup (veggie soup really) using all freshly harvested vegetables – pumpkin, Choko, potato, herbs, turmeric, ginger, garlic chives, mustard spinach, and many other veggies and greens we find.

 

I think our 4yo will discover one day that usually pumpkin soup is orange, not green, but both these meals are great ways to get him to enjoy lots of freshly-plucked organic greens.

 

Weeping rosemary hanging over the terrace wall gets plucked for most meals.

Anyway, I started typing up a recipe for the book I am working on, The Good Life Guide and realized that this meal was far more than the recipe could communicate. A simplicity of just listing the recipe ingredients and steps seemed somehow to diminish the inherent qualities of the food.

 

Tulsi leaves and seeds also end up in most salads, soups, curries, and bakes.

 

 For me it is the rich tapestry of connections that are cultivated through this food that brings it’s true quality to light – the connections with the seasons, with our local environment, with the soil, with neighbors, with friends, with each other in our family, with our play, with our home education, and our workplace.

 

Garlic chives and their flowers have an amazingly powerful garlic flavour.

Here is my first attempt to describe the eggy-bake process…

 

1. Send the kids up to collect the eggs from the chook house we built using timber our neighbour harvested in his woodlot and a gift of reclaimed iron sheeting. We have an eclectic mix of rare breed chickens that the children look after. The eggs are all different shapes and sizes – but all have superbly orange yolks because they free-range often.

 

2. Wander around the garden with a handmade basket collecting a wonderful array of herbs, flowers, and leafy greens (and purples). I take a leaf from this and a leaf from that so I don’t harm the plant and can come back again day after day for more. It’s a peaceful way to garden and harvest.
   
   I collect things like soft pumpkin leaves and shoots, sweet potato leaves and shoots, mustard spinach, any brassica flowers, and soft flower stalks, many varieties of kale, welsh onion leaves, the bolting shoots from coriander/cilantro, tulsi leaves, garlic chives and garlic chive flowers, Brazilian spinach … there are so many things to collect, even pea leaves, bean leaves, beetroot leaves, young chia leaves, young amaranth leaves, weeds – chickweed, dandelion leaves. The more diverse the selection, the more diverse the nutrients in the food.

   The magnificent red mustard spinach is making its way into every meal in these cooler months.

   I love this time in the garden, watching the birds, noticing things – new shoots on trees, self-seeding veggies, subtle changes, and simple beauty. I think about what I can add to the garden to increase diversity or adapt to the changing season.

   Brassica flowers are a wonderful treat. I often snack on them in the garden.

   
   I notice where I need to add some more compost or mulch. The compost is made from the chicken bedding, and the Azolla we harvested by hand from the lake. The mulch is often chopped and drop materials, but we do also go and pick up some local bales of grass straw that another neighbour orders in bulk for us all to use. The kids love to ride in the trailer with the bales slowly back along the little internal road within the ecovillage with the wind in their hair, singing in the breeze,  watching for hawks and kangaroos.
   
   I could ask the kids to harvest the greens too because they know where all the great greens are at any moment – the garden is their playground – and sometimes I do, but I just love this time in the garden pottering for a few minutes.

 

There’s always a surprise somewhere in the garden.

 

3. Ask my children to whiz it all together in the food processor with a bit of fresh milk from the neighbour and handmade ricotta from another neighbour.

 

4. Cook it in a solar cooker (for a lunchtime meal) or a solar-powered electric oven (for dinner).

 

5. Duck out to the garden again just before the eggy bake is ready and collect some salad greens. I like to wrap little bits of eggy bake in a leaf.

   Fresh mixed salad with self-seeding tomatoes and lots of perennial greens, edible weeds and edible flowers.

    
6. Sometimes I go the extra bit and drizzle a salad with homemade dressing – shaking together a little organic olive oil made just down the valley (sourced from the local organic food store), with some homemade kombucha vinegar (using a SKOBY dropped off by a neighbour, a chopped up garlic clove hand-delivered from a friend in Tasmania (traded for limes), and some herbs and spices from the garden like rosemary, oregano, thyme, or chilli, ginger and lemongrass. Even simpler, I grab a lime, lemon, or grapefruit and squeeze it over the salad. Delicious just like that!

    

   Fresh greens, snowpeas. tomatoes, citrus and garlic

    

7. Ask the children to set the table. Often they gather a little posy of edible flowers and lemon myrtle leaves and make a beautiful arrangement.
8. Sit down together and enjoy, discussing the particular flavours and textures that we like in today’s version. You see, they are always different – and that’s the beauty of it too. 

 

It sounds quite complicated, but really it’s ultimately simple. All the ingredients are all just here around us, it’s seasonal, it connects us with our neighbours and friends, and our local environment,  we all help to make it happen, we all enjoy it immensely because of the heart and soul that we know has gone into every part.  And, from start to finish, cooking from scratch, it usually takes us around 30 minutes to prepare and cook as long as we keep it thin in the glass cooking trays.

 

Brazilian Spinach has leaves all year round for harvest.

This is slow food, but it’s not slow, quite rapid actually. With three children – two of them boys with huge appetites – preparing good food quickly seems to be the best approach, as well as getting them involved in the process.

 

Keep in mind too that I typically garden for about 10 minutes a day to maintain this garden – not a huge commitment, but an enormous benefit to our health and to the education of my children.

 

Some other reasons I love this way of cooking:

• this is community food
• it’s package free – the natural packaging of the eggs goes back to the soil. The milk comes in re-used bottles.
• it’s part of nutrient cycles in the garden and is waste-free
• it is so satisfying and just makes me smile so deeply when I sit down to share this meal

What’s a simple meal you cook from scratch?  What does it mean to you?

The post Good Food: Good Life: My recipe for simple eggy bake straight from the garden. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

What? The common Pawpaw Ointment is mostly petroleum jelly?

Call me naive, but I assumed that the pawpaw ointment I was using was made up of….well mostly pawpaw, not 96% petroleum jelly. Recently I took a closer look – the only ingredient I found on the container is ‘Carica papaya 39mg/g Fresh Fermented Fruit’  and a little note on the side saying ‘Contains Potassium Sorbate 0.1mg/g as Preservative’. Nowhere does it say petroleum jelly. I thought ingredients, especially main ones, needed to be listed. 

(Note: In Australia what most people call papaya, we call pawpaw.)

A-ha – only 39mg of pawpaw for every 1000mg. I should have read closer and delved deeper. Pawpaw ointment has always been put forward as a natural product so I didn’t suspect. When I first started using it back as a teenager, you could only get it in health food stores. Now the little red tubes are available just about everywhere. It’s promoted as a great all round natural healing ointment that is antibacterial and antimicrobial – good for lots of day to day issues.

Australians seem to be addicted to this stuff. So many households have it and I imagine many women (and men) would have a little tube in their bags. 

As it turns out, there are lots of other pawpaw ointments around that do not contain petrochemical by-products –  but I was using the little red tubes and tubs of ointment made close by in Brisbane. 

I know for sure that many you have already discovered this piece of information, but if you haven’t, now you know. I must admit, I’m feeling pretty silly. For 30 years I have used it on little cuts and scrapes, on nappy rash, chaffing, insect bites… I never knew it was mostly petroleum jelly –  a non-renewable hydrocarbon made from crude oil! How did I miss that? 

What is Petroleum Jelly?

Petroleum jelly is a by-product of the oil industry and can contain petrolatum and mineral oil. Apparently almost all skincare products in the US have Petroleum Jelly/Petrolatum/Mineral Oil because it’s a cheap filler. It’s also used in hair care products to give shine.

It coats the skin like plastic. It’s a barrier to lock moisture in or out – preventing the skin from breathing, excreting and absorbing. It slows the skin’s natural development and can contribute to premature ageing. 

Highly regarded scientist and eco-activist, David Suzuki, warns against using petrolatum on his website and explains why the EU restricts its use in cosmetics: (http://davidsuzuki.org/issues/health/science/toxics/chemicals-in-your-cosmetics—petrolatum/). His site says that :

‘petrolatum can be contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Studies suggest that exposure to PAHs — including skin contact over extended periods of time — is associated with cancer. On this basis, the European Union classifies petrolatum a carcinogen, and restricts its use in cosmetics. PAHs in petrolatum can also cause skin irritation and allergies. ‘

Additional research done by the Environmental Working Group  (www.ewg.org/skindeep/2007/02/04/impurities-of-concern-in-personal-care-products)adds that:

“Many of the cosmetic industry’s chemical safety assessments reveal that common petroleum-based cosmetic ingredients can be contaminated with a cancer-causing impurity called 1,4-dioxane.”

While the pawpaw ointment company in question claims to use pharmaceutical grade petroleum jelly (petrolatum) that is not carcinogenic. They say it is also hypo-allergenic and completely safe for all the family. This said, it still is from the petroleum industry and personally, I would much rather put natural products on my skin given the choice. I ignorantly thought I was. 

What now…?

In actual fact, I most often reach for a big leaf of Aloe vera from my garden for burns, rashes, cuts and so on. I also strap on a chunk of Aloe gel and let it soak in – for animals too. It is wonderful and totally fresh and potent. Not so great in my bag, but my own comfrey ointment is great for this.

Since I’ve been making my own comfrey lotion (using beeswax, olive oil and comfrey leaves from my garden) I’ve not been using the pawpaw ointment that much any more, but I’m keen though to learn how to make it and use some of those pawpaws that are ripening in my food forest.

The post Did you know that Pawpaw Ointment is made of 96% petroleum jelly? appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Some of the bags of clothes waiting to head up to the charity stores in Maleny.

Living like a backpacker

Back in the early 1990s, Evan and I were travelling around the world a lot with our backpacks and lived amply on a handful of simple clothes. However, since we’ve had kids and settled a bit more, things have accumulated. As much as I promised myself this would never happen, it did. It was definitely time for a big clear out. I’m pretty sure what I’ve kept would be able to fit into a backpack again.

I love wearing sarongs here in the subtropics – they are lightweight and easy to store and care for.

Special souvenirs of musty space-fillers?

Not only were my own clothes filling up the wardrobe space, but clothes I had kept from when our children were little – things I thought were special souvenirs of their baby days. What they had become really were musty, stained and old (storing things in humid subtropics is difficult). I have kept just a few really special items and packed them very well.

Getting up my nose

All these surplus clothes were collecting dust which I was really starting to find was getting up my nose – literally.  Today, everything got washed with soapnuts and eucalytus, and the entire wardrobe and room was wiped down with diluted vinegar. It feels so fresh again.

How did I sort through it all?

Basically I just made one big pile on the floor  in the middle of my bedroom and methodically went through each piece.  It took me half a day to sort, wash and clean out all the dust from the back of the wardrobe  – a big commitment of time, but one that is going to save me lots of washing, sorting, putting away etc. later.  

As I went through the clothes I placed them in nine different piles and bags: 

• Keepers –  I went through this pile a couple of times to refine my choice to pick natural fibres, ethical items and ones that are biodegradable.
• Storage box – a selection of a few things for different seasons and some favourite skirts which will be good when I lose a few kilos (!?)
• Gift bag – almost new children’s clothes that are suitable for friends with young children.
• Hand-me-down pile – some retro pieces of my clothing that now fit my daughter
• Charity store bag – all the good quality clothes that were left
• Upcycling box – a few pieces I liked that had fabulous fabric, but no longer a good style are awaiting redesign (when I get a new sewing machine pedal – Monty was experimenting with scissors recently).
• Rag bag – too bad to fix but good for rags.
• Worm pile – too bad to fix and fully biodegradable.
• Rubbish – too bad to fix and not good for rags or worms. (thankfully this was the smallest pile)

My small selection of clothes for storage for another season.

This is all that is left in my wardrobe –  a couple of skirts, shirts, singlets and long sleeve tops – and my favourite jacket with all the pockets for collecting seeds while I’m out and about.

The post How I downshifted my wardrobe by 80 percent. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Amaranth is an amazing food – quite overlooked as a powerhouse. It’s simple to grow, simple to cook and super delicious.

Here’s seven good reasons to add it to your diet:

1. HIGH IRON: Did you know that one cup of cooked Amaranth grain (actually a seed*) can provide you with much of your daily iron needs? I was amazed when I read this.  Having been a vegetarian since early childhood, finding new ways to keep my iron levels up is always interesting news to me.
2. HIGH CALCIUM and Magnesium – also high in manganese, vitamins B and E, zinc and potassium.
3. HIGH PROTEIN: Amaranth is one of the most protein rich plant based foods. Its seed has 20% protein. 
4. HIGH LYSINE: Amaranth offers the highest source of vegetarian Lysine. Lysine, an amino acid, is a building block for protein, and it helps with calcium absorption and collagen production.
5. GLUTEN FREE: Amaranth is gluten free. It can be ground as a flour or cooked as a psuedograin.
6. HIGH FIBRE:  A diet high in fibre keeps the digestive system healthy
7. EASY AND FAST TO GROW: Did you know you can get up to 100,000 seeds from one plant!  Amaranth is super easy and fast to grow. It takes less than 30 days before harvesting small leaves and just 50 days to maturity. It can cope with heat and dry conditions a lot better than any other leafy green. It grows easily in many contexts and self-seeds readily. You can eat the young leaves, but older ones are best cooked and used like spinach. I add amaranth leaves to all sorts of meals – stir fries, soups, quiches, omelettes, frittata, curries etc. (Typically people have cooked amaranth leaves to reduce their oxalic acid content.

I love the look of amaranth in the garden – it’s flowers are amazing.

The post 7 Reasons to Grow and Eat Amaranth – A Simple Ancient Superfood appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Teff – healthy, nutritious, gluten-free, resistant starch

Why teff is healthy…

Flatbread ingredients – simply flour, water, salt, soil and seeds

Flatbread recipe

Ingredients

• 250gms plain flour (I used teff today – but you could use any flour)
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 150 mls warm water
• 2 tbsp seeds (chia, sesame)

Method

• mix flour, seeds, salt then add the oil and water mix together to form a dough
• turn out onto a floured board and kneed for 5 mins
• cover the ball with a bowl and rest for 15 mins
• when ready to cook and eat – cut into 8, roll until 2-3mm thick
• use a heavy pan or griddle – cook until it looks ‘set’ on top, then flip and cook for another 45 seconds
• wrap cooked flatbreads in tea towel to keep warm (I just cooked one now, and will roll and cook the rest tonight for the family)
• if you cook too many, renew the next day by brushing on a little oil, putting in the oven and using them as dippers.

Make a dough and turn onto floured board.

After 5 minutes of kneading, cover with bowl and let sit for 15 mins.

Roll to 2-3mm thickness.

Cook on griddle or heavy-based pan.

Serve with salads and soup.

The post Homemade & Homegrown: DIY Flatbreads with Teff – a Healthy & Satisfying Lunch appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

This 9 minute film (click link below to watch) shows how to simply make a super delicious cold remedy from easy-to-grow plants in the garden.  I love that my medicine cabinet is in my kitchen garden surrounding my house and that I can just go outside and pluck fresh herbs and leaves with superb vitality to help sooth a cough and cold when I need it for me and my family.

There are so many great herbs to use in each climatic region.   Here at this time of year, some great ones are:

1. lemon myrtle
2. peppermint
3. menthol mint
4. oregano
5. sacred basil
6. turmeric
7. ginger

Today, I also added organic cinnamon and some raw honey to the blend – mmmm ….delicious and very soothing. Just what I need right now.

I’ve written about the brew I made yesterday and listed a few additional plants – lemon, orange peel, lemon balm, thyme. Each brew I make is slightly different which keeps it interesting.

What is your favourite cold remedy from your garden?

[DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor or natural therapist. The information in this blog post and the associated film is based on personal research, conversations with lots of knowledgeable people, and years of experimenting. Please make up your own mind about whether you think it is useful.]

The post My Medicinal Garden: 7 Super Plants For A Delicious Common Cold Remedy – Film #13 (9 mins) appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

I brew up a delicious tea from these things and sip it throughout the day.  I find it helps so much.

Today’s ingredients: Raw Turmeric, Raw Ginger, Lemon Myrtle, Sacred Basil, Lemon and Raw Honey

I put the leaves and roots all in together for a gentle simmer (not the honey).

After about 15 minutes, I strain this into my jar (a coffee filter fits perfectly!!)

I like to use these jars because I can put a lid on it and come back later.

I stir in a spoonful of raw honey when the temperature has cooled little. Heating raw honey destroys many of it’s wonderful properties.

THE FIVE PLANTS IN TODAY’S BREW…

Lemon 

Lemon Myrtle 

Sacred Basil / Tulsi

Ginger

Turmeric 

Raw honey

Tomorrow I will try another brew and add these things too:

Orange peel 

Lemon Balm / Melissa

Peppermint 

Thyme 

Oregano 

The post Home Grown Medicine: 10 Common Medicinal Plants I Use As A Natural Cold Remedy appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Grab a cuppa and take a listen. Please leave comments on the Up For a Chat site (and also here on my blog) about the sorts of things you’d like me to speak about when I return to the Wellness Couch for a follow-up conversation about how to get your own simple garden set up.

UC196: Permaculture with Morag Gamble (73:03 mins)
http://thewellnesscouch.com/uc/uc-196-permaculture-with-morag-gamble

Some of the points of conversation include:

• How I came to live a permaculture life
• How to live a simpler, less stressful life and step away from the over-consumerism.
• How the healthier the earth is the healthier we all become
• How living in nature is like a natural meditation.
• How superfoods come from supersoils – the importance of keeping your soils healthy
• How everything has a context for learning – my approach to homeschooling.
• How seeing the world through children’s kids eyes opens up the world tenfold.
• How to reduce waste in our home – food waste and single-use plastics
• The value of growing as much as we can at home & how there’s is more food in most edible gardens than we typically imagine.
• How to think of your garden as one big ecosystem
• How we all have a voice – we can all be part of the change.

The post Permaculture & Healthy Living: Morag Gamble Speaks with Cyndi O’Meara & Friends on the Wellness Couch Podcast appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

image source: www.onegreenplanet.org

• Synthetic fibres shed and accumulate as toxicity in nature. 
• Natural fibres biodegrade and are recycled by nature. (Most of my old clothes end up as mulch, worm food and compost)

Those of you who have read my blog posts before know I focus on food and growing, but today I am moved to write from a different angle. Thanks to the many recent conversations I’ve had with people on this disastrous link between fast fashion, ecological systems disruption and toxicity in our food.

Please join me in thinking about this big issue and next time you are heading out to make a textile purchase. And please me spread the word by sharing this post with your friends and networks.

Think, buy, use, renew and make natural!

Might be time to get those alpacas …. image source: www.goodonyou.org.au

The post Did you know our clothes are poisoning us? More Reasons to Choose Simple Natural Fashion for Earth Care and People Care appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.