Buying local

Last Saturday night I noticed an email which had just arrived from Wuk Wuk Beef – the market they were to attend had been cancelled! The good news was that they were going to sell from the farmgate the next day. We quickly decided that we just had to go and see where our beautiful beef come from, so the next morning we hopped into the car and headed off. I also wanted to stop off at the little farmer’s market in Stratford, but with the weather the way it was, we didn’t know if they would be there. But alas they were – some people are so stoic! So loaded my basket with lots of fresh veg before we continued on to Wuk Wuk.

When we arrived we were greeted by Peter and we had discussions about the different cuts he had available, smoking beef, how beautiful and peaceful the area was – no wonder the beef tastes so good, the cattle are raised in idyllic surrounds. I asked Peter for a challenge! My challenge is to prepare a 2.7 brisket in my smoker, but that will be a later post. When we left we had the brisket, a girello and some beautiful scotch fillet.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the girello, but it came to me early on Monday morning, bresaola! Bresaola is cured and air dried beef, typically using girello, so I hit the net and found a few methods, recipes etc. Eventually deciding on that of a fellow blogger and got to work. I’ll let you know if it works, it should be ready by Christmas!

Sunday night I noticed a post on Facebook from Healthy Fermenting, advising that unless more people started to buy the Gippsland Jersey milk, they wouldn’t be able to continue supplying it. While I still had some in the fridge, I popped in on Tuesday to pick up some more, there was only one left, hopefully sales are improving and the new supply was due to arrive the following day. I decided it was time to make some cheese.

Homemade lemon cheese with a little dried garlic, onion and parsley.

Homemade lemon cheese

Homemade fromage blanc

Gordon kindly provided me with a new recipe for Fromage Blanc, and I also made some Lemon Cheese, which is really only cheese made with the aide of lemon juice and is very much like ricotta, and it’s delicious.The Lemon Cheese was used in the Frittata we had for dinner last night.

Now back to the basket of goodies I picked up at the Stratford Farmer’s Market. At the far end of the table bunches of beetroot caught my eye, and even though I still had some in the fridge at home, I just couldn’t resist bringing some more home with me. I think the thing that attracted me most here, was the freshness, and the leaves, they just needed to be used to. So this week most of our meals have starred beetroot. We had beetroot carpaccio with goats cheese, then Braised Beetroot Leaves which paired beautifully with barbequed Pork, Onion and Sage Sausages (from Coltish Pork of course) and mash, then last night we had Beetroot Top, Leek and Fresh Cheese Frittata, oh and I also pickled and preserved a few bottles of beetroot for the store.

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We continue our work in the garden, and the roses at the front entrance are stunning.

Until next time…

Bon appétit!

Links:

Wuk Wuk Beef

Cotlish Pork

Healthy Fermenting

Braised Beetroot Leaves

Beetroot Top Leek and Fresh Cheese Frittata

Lemon Cheese

The Entrance

Not long after we moved to our new home in Maffra I happened upon a shop called Heathy Fermenting and I just had to go in and have a look. I noticed cheese and yoghurt making supplies, preserving supplies and a lot more, and started chatting to the owner, Gordon. He mentioned that he would be holding cheese making classes soon, so I put my name down for him to let me know the date, time and location. Not long after, an email landed in my inbox, to which I promptly responded and booked in for the class. The class was wonderful, friendly and informative. We all went home ready to make our first batch of cheese, and looking forward to the next class. However, it was at the class that I was told that there was a push for local farmers to be able to sell their own milk and something would be happening soon. I wasn’t sure how or when this was to happen, but given the treatment of our farmers by the fat corporates, I have been watching out.

I am now so, so excited to tell you that when I was reading the local newspaper earlier this week, I noticed this little piece about “Gippsland Jersey”

Gippsland Times, 20 September 2016, page 21

A quick search of the internet and I discovered that Healthy Fermenting stocked their milk. I told Gary about the story and he went and bought our first 2 litre bottle. But it just wasn’t the milk that he came home with… It was also the interaction, he told me how interesting it was in the shop, chatting to Gordon and learning how this little milk brand is going to help our struggling dairy farmers, also while they were chatting, another chap walked in just to thank Gordon for introducing him to Gippsland Jersey – he had been trying to get his children and grandchildren to stop drinking softdrink and to drink more milk – this milk has done the trick. They love the taste and he is one happy dad and grandfather.

You know we forget, dairy cows don’t take the weekend off, they have to be milked 7 days a week, so the farmers don’t get a day off either, it’s not an easy life, it is hard work, and long days. Meanwhile the fat corporates sit in their ivory towers earning obscene amounts of money for themselves and their shareholders (just check out their recent after tax profits), but they pay our hardworking farmers a pittance in return, in fact, as you may or may not know they recently reduced how much they pay them! – OK now I’ll step down from my soapbox, sorry…

So I wanted to do something with this new beautiful product… What to make – Crème Caramel seamed like an obvious choice, but I had never made it before. I hit the books and found two recipes. Of course they were both different. The one I wanted to make simply said, “pour the resulting custard into a caramel-coated mould”, it didn’t give quantities or instruction on how to make the caramel. So I decided to make the custard recipe from one book and the caramel from the other. Again, having not made a Crème Caramel before, when I poured the caramel into the moulds, it set rock hard! I panicked – I thought I would have a horrible mess and what about our teeth! So took a deep breath, calmed down and decided to follow the recipe.