Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Food, Fruit, Vegetable, Weekly Box | Tags: Apple, Apples, Asparagus, Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Avocado, Baby Bok Choy, Banana, Bok Choy, Broccoli, Brown Onion, Carrot, Chat Potato, Cherry Tomato, Cos Lettuce, Food, Fruit, Golden Delicious Apple, Lemon, Lettuce, Mandarin, Murcott Mandarin, Onion, Orange, Pears, Potato, Sundowner Apples, Sweet Potato, Tomato, Vegetable, www.aussiefarmers.com.au, Zucchini
So what did I get from Aussie Farmers Direct for my $35AU this week? Lots and lots of my fav. foods thats what.
4 x Pears
3 x Sundowner Apples
3 x Golden Delicious Apples
5 x Bananas
4 x Carrots
1 x Avocado - my most fav. fruit in the whole entire world.
2.5kg bag Chat Potato
2 x Broccoli
3 x Brown Onions
3 x Murcott Mandarins
1 x Baby Bok Choy (Shanghai)
1 x Cos baby leaves punnet
4 x Oranges
1 x Lemon
1 x Sweet Potato
3 x Zucchini Green
1 x Asparagus Bunch
1 x Tomato Cherry Punnet
Now for confession time.
Wow! I have nothing to confess this week 
:: Happy Dance :: we used everything. The celery got chopped up and put into little bags in the freezer to add to meals. Pear got turned into more apple and pear butter. Everything else was eaten during the week. Now that is awesome.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Food, Fruit, Vegetable, Weekly Box | Tags: Asparagus, Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Banana, Bell Pepper, Broccoli, Brown Onion, Carrot, Celery, Food, Fruit Vegetable, Granny Smith Apple, Lemon, Murcott Mandarins, Onion, Orange, Pear, Potato, Potato Salad, Red Bell Pepper, Red Capsicum, Red Potato, Rockmelon, Sundowner Apple, Tomato, Washed Potato, www.aussiefarmers.com.au
Heidi was very excited when the doorbell rang at 5.50pm on Thursday afternoon, she ran to look out the window and started yelling out to me “Is farmers direx”, “You get the box mummy”, “Is my farmers direx”. Awww. Nothing like a little indoctrination. Then she did a happy dance while I opened the box. 
So what did I get from Aussie Farmers Direct for my $35AU this week? I couldn’t find the list of what was in the box so hopefully I’ve got it all, I’m typing this up as I put it all away.
4 x Pears
3 x Sundowner Apples
3 x Granny Smith Apples
4 x Bananas
1 x Lemon
1 x bunch Asparagus (mine mine all mine!)
1 x massive bunch of Celery (Mel can I interest you?)
4 x Carrots
2.5kg bag Red Washed Potato
2 x Broccoli
3 x Brown Onions
3 x Murcott Mandarins
1 x Red Onion
1 x 100g salad mix leaves
4 x Navel Oranges
4 x Tomatoes
1 x Rockmelom
1 x Red Capsicum (Bell Pepper)
Now for confession time.
I’ve thrown out the iceberg lettuce, it is not going to get eaten here at all.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Food, Fruit, Snack | Tags: Apple, Apple Butter, Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Cinnamon, Crock Pot, Food, Fruit, Pear, Pear Butter, Slow Cooker, www.aussiefarmers.com.au
Ingredients
8 Pears
5 Apples
1 cup Water or apple cider
1 cup Brown Sugar
2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Ground Cloves
Put all the ingredients into the crock pot / slow cooker. I had frozen up left over pieces of apple and pear from the girls PreSchool snacks, the bits they hadn’t eaten. Much of it was not peeled even and I worried that would effect the end result but it didn’t at all. So now I know not to waste time peeling all the apples and pears.
Cook on low for 6 hours stirring occasionally.
Leave a toothpick or chopstick under the lid to vent some of the steam and help the liquid reduce.
After 6 hours use a stick blender to mush everything together until it is smooth and spreadable.
Cook in the crock pot / slow cooker for a couple more hours on low with a tooth pick or chopstick in the side to vent the steam. Basically at this point I was aiming to make it really thick, if you prefer a thinner consistency you could stop after blending and move straight onto bottling.
Once finished you can bottle it up to give away as gifts or keep it all for yourself and don’t share the yummy goodness.
Tastes great on toast, sandwiches or as a spread for roast pork.
The Verdict – Apple Butter has been a staple in our home since I discovered the recipe and how easy it was to make in the slow cooker / crock pot. You MUST make this. 
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Food, Fruit, Vegetable, Weekly Box | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Banana, Broccoli, Brown Onion, Brushed Potato, Carrot, Cherry Tomato, Corn, Food, Fruit, Golden Delicious Apple, Iceberg Lettuce, Murcott Mandarins, Oranges, Pear, Red Onion, Strawberry, Sundowner Apple, Sweet Potato, Tomato, Vegetable, www.aussiefarmers.com.au, Zucchini
So what did I get from Aussie Farmers Direct for my $35AU this week?
4 x Pears Apple & Pear Butter coming soon
3 x Sundowner Apples
3 x Golden Delicious Apples
4 x Bananas
4 x Carrots
2 x Corn
8 x Brushed Potato
2 x Broccoli
3 x Brown Onions
2 x Zucchini
3 x Murcott Mandarins
1 x Red Onion
1 x Iceberg Lettuce
4 x Oranges
2 x Sweet Potato
1 x Cherry Tomato Punnet
1 x Strawberry Punnet
2 x Tomatoes
Now for confession time.
We still have the Honey Dew Melon, Broccolli, Cauliflower, Carrots, Potatos and Onions (and some stuff I’ve forgotten) from the previous week. Being in hospital with Heidi for much of the week means food at home really didn’t get eaten. I’m working on using it all up but have not had time to post about it.
I did have to throw out some of the roasted and mashed pumpkin because I didn’t get it into the freezer in time and it was going mouldy in our fridge by the time I noticed it yesterday.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Food, Fruit, Vegetable, Weekly Box | Tags: Apple, Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Banana, Beetroot, Broccoli, Brown Onion, Brushed Potato, Capsicum, Carrot, cauliflower, Eggplant, Food, Fruit, Golden Delicious Apples, Honey Dew Melon, Mandarin, Murcott Mandarin, Onion, Oranges, Pears, Potato, Red Onion, Roma Tomato, Sundowner Apples, Tomato, Vegetables, www.aussiefarmers.com.au, Zucchini
So what did I get from Aussie Farmers Direct for my $35AU this week?
5 x Pears :: sigh :: I’m thinking pear butter maybe?
4 x Sundowner Apples
3 x Golden Delicious Apples
3 x Bananas
4 x Carrots
1 x Cauliflower
10 x Brushed Potato
2 x Broccoli
3 x Brown Onions
3 x Zucchini (the list in the box said I should have gotten 2, seems I scored an extra one)
3 x Murcott Mandarins
1 x Red Onion
5 x Roma Tomatoes
4 x Oranges
1 x Capsicum
6 x Beetroot (the list said 3, but I got 6, they are fairly small so perhaps that is why)
1 x Eggplant
1 x Honey Dew Melon
I’ve got some great recipe ideas percolating, can’t wait to get cooking. Ratatouille would seem to be a must this week, but I will have a look in my recipe books before I make a final decision. Probably not beetroot ice-cream though
Now for confession time.
I ended up throwing out a couple of stalks of celery from the box two weeks ago, it was all limp and yukky. I gave away the pineapple and the mandarins to my sister in law, the mandarins from this weeks box have been given away also.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Breakfast, Food, Fruit, Snack | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Banana, Breakfast, Food, Fruit, Mandarin, Pineapple, Snack, Strawberry, www.aussiefarmers.com.au
Delicious fruit snacks (pineapple, banana and mandarin) and equally delicious Strawberries with our cereal.
Yum yum yum.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Food, Fruit, Main, Salad, Vegetable | Tags: Aioli, Aioli Mayonnaise, Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Bacon, Cabbage, Carrot, Chicken, Coleslaw, Dairy Free, Eggs, Fathers Day, Food, Fruit, Knives, Mundial, Pears, Potato, Potato Salad, Red Onion, Roast Chicken, Salad, Vegetables, www.aussiefarmers.com.au
Add playing with knives to your list of “Things not to do at 5am when you’ve had 4 hours sleep and no coffee.”
Thankfully I only sacrificed a fingernail to the God of Sharp Stuff before I came to my senses and had lots and lots of coffee 
.
I must digress for a moment to state my deep love of my Mundial Knives and thank my brother-in-law Peter for suggesting them. They are perfect for my needs, well after sleep and coffee when I’m less prone to injure myself.
My contribution to the in-laws Fathers Day lunch was:
2 Roast Chickens (roasted with pears inside them instead of stuffing, they were very moist)
Coleslaw
Potato Salad.
Coleslaw
3 Carrots
2/3 of the half a cabbage.
Kraft Coleslaw dressing (not the low fat kind as that has dairy in it)
I grated the carrots and the cabbage using the fancy machine my mother-in-law gave me. Very quick and easy once I cut everything down so it fit in the machine. Which of course meant waiting for the coffee to hit my nervous system and make using a knife less dangerous.
Mix it all together, I like to be pretty generous with the dressing. Yummy coleslaw ready to go. Plus if you are lucky you get leftovers to eat on sandwiches with the left over corned beef from dinner the other night. 
Sorry about the shocking photo it was pretty early and I was a little sleep deprived. 
Potato Salad
This is a recipe I got from my mum and of course modified a little, I just can not help myself, I have to change something.
2 kg bag of smallish potatoes
250g Middle Bacon
1 dozen eggs
1 red onion
Super Secret Ingredient 
Shhhh don’t tell anyone else – Aioli Mayonnaise. I’ve been buying the Neil Perry Fresh brand from Safeway but looking up the recipe online I think I could make this myself. It is also dairy free.
Peel potatoes and quarter. Boil until just cooked. Drain and tip into large salad bowl. Yep ‘tip’ I’m all about technical cooking terms.
Boil the eggs until they are hard (I give them about 10 minutes to be sure). Peel the eggs and quarter them. They can go into the large salad bowl with the potato.
Finely dice the onion and the bacon. Saute together in a medium hot fry pan (I don’t add oil, just let the bacon fat do) until the bacon is a little crispy and the onion is translucent. They get a really nice smell happening about the time the are ready to finish cooking. Tip them out onto some paper towel to drain the fat.
Then add the onion and bacon into the large salad bowl also. Pour in all the mayonnaise and mix together gently. You have to be gentle or else the eggs fall to pieces.
Another bad pic sorry.
The potato salad was a massive hit and we only had enough left over after for hubby and I to have a spoonful each.
The Verdict – This potato salad is TEH AWESOME! Coleslaw was good, not stellar but good and very tasty the next day on sandwiches which I think is the best use for coleslaw after spreading on hot chips. The chicken with pear stuffed inside it was also really nice and moist, my chickens usually roast too dry which is why I avoid roasting them, maybe pear is the secret. Overall a successful contribution to the family lunch.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Fruit, Snack | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Carrot, Children, Food, Fruit, Kinder, lunch box, Mandarin, McDonalds, Murcott Mandarins, Pears, PreSchool, Snack, Strawberry, www.aussiefarmers.com
Both Pre-Schools my girls attend have a strict fruit and veg only policy for snacks.
Here is Heidi’s snack box for today (we use the lunch box tin that her Wiggles DVDs came in).
That is a Murcott Mandarin, two strawberries (quartered – they were quite large) and carrot sticks. Strawberries from this weeks box, Mandarin and carrot from last weeks and still very fresh and yummy.
One trick I’ve found to get kids to eat fruit is to put the fruit in an appealing bag. That I learnt from McDonalds, make the packaging fun and people will eat just about anything Mmmm cheeseburger :drool:
Here is the bag Heidi’s strawberries and carrots were in, unfortunately Coles Online don’t stock these so I have to go into the actual grocery store to purchase them. You can rinse and re-use these bags but I find hot water does make the pretty picture wear off.
Hubby has already eaten two of the pears from this weeks box after I put the pears on the very top of the fruit bowl. High Five! Only two pears to go.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Food, Fruit, Vegetable, Weekly Box | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Bananas, Broccoli, Brown Onions, Brushed Potato, Cabbage, Carrots, Food, Fruit, Granny Smith Apples, Japanese Pumpkin, Murcott Mandarins, Oranges, Pears, Pineapple Gold, Red Onion, Strawberry, Sundowner Apples, Sweet Potato, Tomatoes, Vegetable
This was sitting on my doorstep Thursday evening when the girls and I got home from Fathers Evening at PreSchool. My box of fruity (and veggie) goodness.
More interesting than the outside of the box is the contents:
How scrummy does that look! And all fresh from the farm, real dirt and all.
So what did I get for my $35AU?
4 x Pears
3 x Sundowner Apples
3 x Granny Smith Apples
3 x Bananas
3 x Carrots
1 x Pineapple Gold
6 x Brushed Potato (big ‘uns)
1 x Broccoli
3 x Brown Onions
1/2 Cabbage (in the plastic bag)
3 x Murcott Mandarins
1 x Red Onion
4 x Tomatoes
3 x Oranges
1 x Strawberry Punnet
1 x Sweet Potato
1 x Japanese Pumpkin
I’ve got some great recipe ideas percolating, can’t wait to get cooking.
Now for confession time.
Today I threw out 2 pears from last weeks box. They had not been eaten and disintegrated into mush in our fruit bowl. 
Still have half a bunch of celery from last weeks box to use and some potato but that is no problem.
Filed under: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Entree, Food, Fruit, Vegetable | Tags: Aussie Farmers Direct Challenge, Beef, Cantaloupe, Crock Pot, Dolma, Dolmades, Food, Lemon Juice, Mince, Olive Oil, Onion, Pepper, Rice, Rockmelon, Silverbeet, Slow Cooker, Swiss Chard, Vegetable
Silverbeet is a green leafy vegetable. Green leafy vegetables and I have a love hate relationship (you can read about that here).
Dolma and I have a love love relationship, I can never get enough of them, yet they are something I’ve not tried to make at home.
Then I found this fabulous recipe using a crock pot over at Greek Recipes with May Lerios. It occurred to me I might be able to do this with my silverbeet instead of the more traditional vine leaves. Plus I have a brand spanking new baby 1.5L crockpot I wanted to try out – thanks Mum!
For the most part I followed May Lerios recipe that I linked to but I did use a smaller amount of ingredients, here is my revised list.
Ingredients
1 bunch of Silverbeet / Swiss Chard
1 medium Onion – finely chopped
1 tsp Olive Oil (to cook the onion)
500g Minced Beef
1/2 cup Arborio Rice
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Dried Oregano (I couldn’t find the mint)
1 Beef Stock Cube diluted in 1/4 cup very hot water
3 tbsp Lemon Juice
Couple of twists of the pepper grinder.
To Prepare the Silverbeet / Swiss Chard.
I washed the leaves and then sliced the stems off, leaving a V shape similar to the vine leaves in May Lerios recipe that I’ve linked to above. Out of my bunch of silverbeet I got about 10 leaves large enough to use.
Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and drop in the leaves. Reduce heat to medium. Once the water starts to boil again remove the leaves and place into a bowl of iced water. This was tricky to do without breaking the leaves. I ended up using a couple of large slotted serving spoons.
The rest of the recipe was made up as per May Lerios instructions in the link - I wont repeat them because she did great step by step instructions with pictures.
Because I was using my new baby crockpot I didn’t have a plate small enough to put in the bottom so I improvised with tin foil. I did have enough little silverbeet leaves left to layer over the top of the foil.
Then I swaddled my mince mixture in the silverbeet leaves, seriously it was exactly the same technique I used to use to swaddle my girls when they were babies… well with the exception of wrapping their heads up in the blanket
I fit two layers of made up dolma in my baby crockpot and used some more tin foil in lieu of a plate on the top.
Then I had a problem – nothing heavy enough and small enough to weigh the dolma down. More improvisation with rubber bands. The very same rubber bands that had not so long ago been used to hold the bunch of silverbeet together, I felt like MacGyver.
The Verdict – These were good. I was a little frustrated about the cooking times, 90 minutes on low heat and then 45 minutes on high heat cooked them perfectly. I think what frustrated me most was throwing out the dolmade I tested after 90minutes because it wasn’t done. Dislike food wastage. That said I think these might become a regular dish in our house and thus I’d eventually get my cooking times down pat. They are delicious. Using the tin foil was inspired, far less to wash up, which is really important because I’m not sharing these babies with anyone else, they are mine, MINE, ALL MINE!
Over at my other blog I’ve written about how the Rockmelon from this weeks Aussie Farmer Direct box rocked my view of Autism – specifically related to sensory / food issues.
