Coming into the season of planting tomatos I thought I would share one of our recipes for home made pasta sauce!
Ingredients
1kg of tomatoes
2 brown onions -chopped finely
1 bunch of basil- chopped finely
handful of fresh oregano – chopped finely
sprig of rosemary – chopped finely
3 small or 1 large zucchini – cubed
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika
5 cloves of garlic crushed
dash of red wine – so you can drink the rest of the bottle It doesn’t count if you drink the wine and pee in the sauce!
Pepper – Salt & chilli to personal preference

Method.
Soften the onions and garlic in olive oil until the onions become translucent, then add tomatoes quartered & wait until there is evident liquid.
Fry zuchini’s in oil at the same time until soft.
Add the remainder of ingredients & simmer down on very low heat for around 2 hours then bottle in sterilized bottles.
Wait until cool and ensure caps pop down then store on the shelf

One of the questions we are frequently asked is, “Which type of chickens should I get?”

There are many breeds of chickens and each of them serve a different purpose. More and more, people with small to medium setups are looking to move away from the standard commercial brown laying chook.

It can be very difficult to give advice on this subject, since its not just about what breed of chicken you want, but also the different lines within that breed.

The Australorp is a perfect example of this conundrum. They should be a terrific choice for a backyard layer because they are the classic Australian chook. However, you can’t just buy Australorps and assume you’ll get the 300 eggs per year suggested by most Internet sources.

Around the same time that commercial egg production companies moved away from using Leghorns, New Hampshires and Australorps to lay eggs for public sale, chook enthusiasts began to breed them for show. The net result of that changeover is a lot of pure breed chooks in Australia have lost their value for the backyard chook keeper. In the show ring, egg laying ability and meat quality don’t even rate a mention, so have been slowly bred out by those attempting to get better colour, feather or combs.

So in Australia we have many strains of pure breeds that should (and used to) lay 250 – 300 eggs per year and are now barely scraping in at 150 – 200 eggs per year if you’re lucky. In my opinion, that simply isn’t viable for the backyard scenario.

But don’t lose hope just yet – some utility strains do still exist in Australia. You just have to be careful when buying.

The most important question to answer is what you want from your chooks. If you’d like to keep the same ones longer term and have them as pets for your kids, then brown layers are not for you. Commercial laying hens are bred for high production of eggs, but they cannot sustain it for very long. They will lay lots in the first season, well in the second and then the egg count will drop dramatically – leaving you with an unproductive mouth to feed. Commercial companies simply switch out their layers every two years.

So if you don’t want new chickens every two years, you’re looking for a pure breed. But which one?

The difficulty now is choosing the breed that fits you and then finding some that are still up to standard, at the very least in the laying department, and depending on your needs in the meat one as well.

Asking the owner if their chooks lay lots of eggs doesn’t really work – if they keep more than one chicken/pen, how can they really tell?

There are several commercial hatcheries that still deal in one or two pure breeds. While their chooks are more reliable layers, they tend to be on the small side. This makes them more efficient because they eat less, but in my experience, the smaller the bird the flightier it is. If you’re simply searching for reliable laying but don’t want to bond much with your birds or breed with them, then pure breeds from commercial hatcheries might be a good option for you.

If you want chooks your kids can have as pets, we would recommend choosing one of the larger pure breeds. The bigger birds tend to be more docile and therefore make much better pets. Of course, depending on what you choose, you may be sacrificing a small amount of laying ability. There are plenty of beautiful pure breeds out there that make great pets if you’re willing to have a few less eggs.

If you’re looking for a good broody hen instead of getting an incubator, then you simply can’t go past a Silky. They are fantastic mums and quite cute too.

Bantams are always an option if you are short on space, but keep in mind they do lay smaller eggs, which means you could need two eggs where you would normally use one.

There really is no simple solution to this problem. Perhaps the only viable solution is to support the small-scale backyard chook enthusiasts who are doing their best to return some of the pure breeds back to their fantastic utility selves. This is, of course, a long-term solution but with careful breeding it is possible.

We recently acquired an older leghorn hen that still lays 80 – 100gram eggs six days a week for 90 per cent of the year. We found her a rooster and are incubating all of her eggs to expand our laying flock. She is a laying breed, so we don’t need to worry about meat quality.

So, the answer to the question posed at the beginning of this blog post comes in several parts:

• Be very clear about what you want out of your chooks
• Consider line as well as breed
• Shop around and ask lots of questions
• Generally, the bigger birds tend to be more docile
• You’ll always need to compromise

Good luck in your search for the right chooks for you. We have included some pictures of the widely available backyard breeds below!

Our First Calf!

On Saturday morning we went to check on the cows and found one was missing. After much worrying and searching we found her hiding in the scrub with a calf! We are quite excited because this is our first calf. It’s a gorgeous little coffee coloured heifer. We have named her Bonnie and will be keeping her for future breeding.

Even though she was a first time mum, the cow calved unassisted and both mum and calf seem healthy.

On Saturday we were concerned because it’s been raining fairly heavily and we have wild dogs, eagles and foxes around at the moment, but the cow has been hiding the calf in the scrub and she is just fine.

Here are some pictures…

Curried pumpkin soup!
Ingredients:
1 butternut pumpkin or similar amount of other pumpkin
1 onion
A couple of cloves of garlic
1 small knob of ginger
1-2 tablespoons curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin
Salt & pepper to season
1 litre of veggie stock
Instructions:
Soften the onion in the pot with a little olive oil, then add ginger and garlic for a few seconds then add in the cumin & curry powder, stir that through for about 20 seconds then add pumpkin and veggie stock and boil until soft.
Blend then serve with a dash of sour cream and italian parsley.

Last night our pregnant sow was racing around nesting and when I checked on her before heading to bed she was lying on her side breathing heavily…all signs that piglets were imminent.

I set an alarm for quarter to six just in case she was having problems. After pulling on my gumboots and trudging up the hill to the pigs I was greeted with seven beautiful healthy little piglets.

Both mum and babies appear to be doing well. Mum is exhausted and happily sleeping nose to nose with our other pig, who appears to be providing moral support.

We have four girls and three boys, which is a great result. Fingers crossed we don’t lose any to being crushed! Dotty has done an excellent job for a first time mum.

Warning pictures of cute piglets contained below..

Today we made the addition of 1000′s of extra critters to Gourmet Backyard HQ in the way of two starter hives of bees.
We purchased two swarms contained in small home made boxes. The bees will be moved into new accommodation before spring really kicks off so that they can generate the maximum quantity of honey!
They are located at the back of our orchard/veggie garden plot to maximise their pollenating regime.
Below are a couple of pictures of them settled in their new home in temporary accommodation until we pick up the new hives.

We spent a few hours earlier this week moving our pigs from one patch of land to another. It got me thinking about the benefits of running pigs on poorer land…

We often refer to pigs as nature’s little rotary hoe. Joel Salatin coined the term Pigerator, which is also fitting because they aerate the soil as they turn it over.
It’s quite amazing how much pigs can do to the ground – just have a look at the pictures below. We had our pigs in that space (about an acre) for three months.

Here in Australia, particularly in sheep farming areas, it’s quite common to have patches of soil that have been over grazed to the point of no longer growing grass. One of the problems once this occurs is that when it rains the water no longer soaks in because the ground is so hard. The water then simply runs off, leaving that patch to continue to become less and less fertile.

We have several of these low soil fertility patches on our property and I’ve spent many an hour pondering a solution that doesn’t take hours of backbreaking work or involve spending a fortune on manufactured fertilisers. A few weeks ago I realised that the answer was right in front of me…it was time for our two resident sows to earn their keep!

The property we live on has large sections of land that was once heavily grazed by sheep and has since turned into dense eucalypt forest with no pasture at all. Early this week I sectioned off a 25m x 25m square of eucalypt forest for the pigs as a bit of an experiment. Early results were very positive – the pigs happily snorted their way through turning several square meters of dense leaf matter over into the ground while searching for bugs, roots and gumnuts. They really seem to love it.

Having the pigs in the forest should serve several purposes – as they refresh the soil new things will start to grow and the land will slowly come back to better health. Eventually we hope to open that section back up for livestock grazing. For us, it also reduces the fire hazard in a section of trees pretty close to the house.

We are expecting our first litter of piglets in the next week, which should mean that many snouts create lighter work!

Finally, I thought I would share a few pictures of the new run before the pigs get to work…

One last winter themed recipe…I promise after this one i’ll get onto some hearty spring related recipes…

700G of Potato’s this would be roughly 4 big ones or 6 smaller ones – chopped into 2cm cubes
3 Leeks chopped finely
1 large brown onion halved and chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic
Pinch of Rosemary
3 large bacon rashers
Salt & Pepper
Dash of thickened cream & pinch of chives
Olive Oil
1 and 1/2 L of Veggie Stock

Add onion and 1 clove of garlic to the pot with some olive oil and cook for around 3 mins, then add leaks & potato and cook until leaks are soft.
Once leeks are soft add the veggie stock put on medium heat to boil
Meanwhile chop the bacon into cubes and cook with the other 2 garlic cloves & rosemary
Once bacon has cooked for a couple of mins add that to other pot then wait until spuds are soft.
Then blend the soup & serve while adding a dash of cream & chives
Grab a large glass of red wine & enjoy

Recipe for the week is our very own Kale, Broad Bean & Chorizo Pasta.

1 Packet elbow macaroni (or other small pasta shape)
1 white onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Bunch of kale leaves stems removed – finely chopped
2 small chorizo sausages skins removed
Salt & pepper to taste
Juice of half a lemon
½ C water
Handful of broad beans – just the beans not the pods
Parmesan to serve

Heat up a deep fry pan, add olive oil, onions, garlic & broad beans. Sweat until onions are transparent. Add chorizo mince and cook until browned.

Add chopped kale, water & lemon. Place lid onto pan & allow kale to sweat for approximately 10-15 minutes.

Combine with pasta and serve with lots of parmesan & a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil.

1 330ml bottle of beer – I tend to use something like an amber ale or stout as it provides a nice rich flavor
1 – 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 tablespoon & 1 teaspoon of raw sugar
3 – 3/4 cups of bakers flour (i’m sure plain flour would work here too)
2 teaspoons of yeast

Method
If being made in a bread maker then tip all the ingredients into it in the order listed and then press go.
If being made by hand place all the ingredients in order into a bowl, mix through then knead until its a nice silky texture if necessary add extra flour or water/beer to achieve this, then place in a bowl covered with a wet tea towel to rise it should take an hour or so depend on ambient temperature, then de-gas – or knock the air out of it then either place it in the bread tin to rise a second time or if making rolls divide into 8ths and roll each one into a round ball then flatten and place on a baking tin for 40 mins or so till they rise.
Then place in an oven on 180 degrees until golden brown – around 20 mins depending on oven.

Beer Bread Rolls