From bottom of the jeans pile to the top!

I bought a pair of jeans ages ago on a whim, they were cheap, and were a good enough fit. But I got them home and after one wear they were way too big in the waist and seemed to get longer every time I wore them. Hippy girls are sure to agree that jeans which are a good fit around the hips and bum are inevitably too big in the waist. A belt is usually enough, but not for these, they bulged out beneath a very cinched in belt.

Eventually, after months at the bottom of my jeans pile, I decided to tackle the length issue. Jonathan had a pair of jeans taken up ages ago (by a professional!), and rather than just folding and hemming, they had reattached the bottom cuff so they still look like jeans. So I dutifully copied, and it was super easy.

Just measure the length you want taken up. Cut off at 1cm longer than this length. Then get the cuff end you've just cut off and cut down to the cuff plus 1cm. Pin the cuff (right sides together, so that the cuff is upside down on the outside of the jeans) to the pant leg. With a zipper foot, sew as close to the cuff as possible. Then zigzag or overlock the seam so that the jeans won't fray. Then fold up so the end is facing up and inside the pant leg and iron, iron, iron. If you find the end keeps folding down, just topstich close to the fold. and it is as simple as that.



For the waist, I found this really great tutorial for taking it at the side seams. I was a bit less precise with my method. I didn't bother unpicking the belt loop as I knew it wouldn't quite interfere with the new seam. And I only unpicked about half what they suggested. I did the side seam the same as suggested, just with less precise measuring!

The waist band was a bit trickier to do as I unstitched very much, so I did it a bit differently. I just cut the waist band and cut out enough so that the two ends of the band only slightly overlapped. I unpicked the top few stitches so that it the upper band would sit nicely over the inside band. Then I just sewed over the top. Yes you can see the seam, but they are just jeans, and a belt would cover most of this. The front bit slipped down a bit when repositioning too, that is the darker denim beneath the waist band, but that is only about 0.5cm. No one is exactly going to be staring at the sides of your jeans either!



So a few pointers:

• Use a denim or heavy duty needle, and have a spare just in case one breaks
• Sharpen the needle, I think this makes a big difference and will prevent broken needles
  
• Overlock or zigzag loose ends as denim frays
• I just used black thread, but a mustard colour would probably match the rest of the jeans better
• You can always take in further, so start with a small amount, and try on before cutting
  
• Jeans are forgiving and don't need to be perfect, as can be seen in my case.
  

Took about half an hour for the length and an hour for the waist. Now they fit perfectly, and the cuffs won't get all wet when it rains and I can bend over with no fear!

More citrus!

If you've scanned past posts you would have noticed marmalade getting a mention here and there. What began as a quick trial of marmalade with some lovely little mandarins from the market a few weeks ago led to a repeat showing of the same at the first SkillCycle day.



As you probably know, marmalade is not everybody's cup of tea. It's not usually mine. Or Lucy's. But hey, I have loved ones that like it and, most of all, it's citrus season. In my house at this very moment there's a big bag of hand picked oranges from a friend, the leftover mandarins from SkillCycle, a small bag of blood red oranges that I couldn't resist (their season is apparently very short), and a mix of lemons, lemonades, mandarins and oranges from our Food Connect subscription.
It's getting out of control...



But why mandarin marmalade, you ask? Well, why not? They're a whole lot easier to prepare for marmalade compared to other citrus. They're easy to peel and we simply leave them in their little segments, removing loose pith and halving them to remove seeds. As I'm not a huge marmalade fan, I halve the quantity of rind used to give a milder, less bitey and bitter flavour. This seems to work quite well coupled with the sweetness of mandarins.



The recipe we have been following is over at a table for two.

There was a couple of things we did differently:

- 1kg sugar and 5 cups of water instead of 1.2kg sugar and 6 cups of water

- We cut 1/4 of total mandarin peels into strips (instead of 1/2)

- We put the jars in boiling water for 10 minutes to sterilise them (not in the oven)

- We sealed jars right after filling them with marmalade (not 15 minutes later as the table for two recipe suggests)

If you were one of the lucky ones who took mandarin marmalade home from the SkillCycle day, let us know what you thought! My impression was that it was more bitter than the first batch Lucy and I made. This may be due to the first mandarins being especially sweet and juicy.

Keep your eyes peeled as I'm going to follow up this post with another about general jam making and preserving.

Lazy girl bread

As promised, my easy bread recipe. I call this my 'Lazy Girl Bread' because sometimes that's what I am. But I still want fresh, homemade bread. This is my compromise. The recipe has a followed a strange convoluted pathway to what I make now. Hannah found the original recipe on Mother Earth News and she tells me it came from a New York Times recipe before that. She gave it to me and I changed the technique and quantities over time to suit my kitchen and my oven. I think many bread recipes that originate in cooler climates need quite a bit of tweaking to work in a humid Brisbane kitchen. This one works very well for my schedule which is important if you're going to be realistic about making bread regularly. It's all very romantic to imagine kneading bread for hours and baking beautiful, gourmet breads each day but in reality, many of us have limited time and just want tasty food quickly. This bread serves this purpose and is good looking as well.

Lazy girl bread

Ingredients

4 cups flour (any mix of wholemeal, white, rye etc.)
2 cups lukewarm water
1/2 teaspoon dry yeast
2 teaspoons salt
extra flour (for dusting)

Equipment

one large mixing bowl
large pot with lid (Pyrex glass, cast iron, or ceramic), if your pot is smaller reduce to 3 cups flour to 1.5 cups water and reduce the yeast an salt a little.
wooden spoon (optional)
plastic wrap (or reuse a plastic bag)

one cotton/linen tea towel (not fluffy) ricotta basket(you get these free when you buy large amounts of ricotta but a colander or basket would work too)

Process

Mix flour and salt in bowl. Mix yeast into water until dissolved. Add water to flour and mix by hand or with a wooden spoon for 30-60secs. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap/bag and let the dough rest 12hrs at room temperature. You can mix dough in morning for a night bake or at night to rest overnight for a morning bake.

Sprinkle a little flour on your bench top. Remove the dough from the bowl using a spoon and tip it onto the floured surface. Fold the sides up into the centre and then flip the dough, tucking it under. Let the dough rest 15 minutes on the bench top. Line your basket with a tea towel and then generously coat tea towel with flour. Place the dough seam side down on the towel and dust with flour. Cover the dough with tea towel and let rise 1-2 hours, until more than doubled in size. Preheat oven to 240-250°C. Place the pot in the oven at least 30 minutes prior to baking. Once the dough has more than doubled, remove the pot from the oven and tip the dough into the pot. Cover with the lid and bake 30mins or until showing some colour. Then remove the lid and bake 15-30mins uncovered, until the loaf is nicely browned. You’ll notice a change in the ‘smell’ of the loaf, from warm bread to slightly 'toasty', that’s a good indicator of the loaf being done. Otherwise, tapping on the loaf and listening for a hollow sound is another good technique. You want to cool the loaf out of the pot on a rack. It is important to wait until the loaf is cool before you cut it. Try to resist. Try hard.

Olives!

I just bought a half kilo of olives at the local fruit shop, the Italian man who runs the store gets them from a family friend. I have no idea how to prepare them but they were super cheap and looked glossy and tasty so I had to buy them. Off to read about curing olives. Any tips?

Blood Orange Cordial

Food Connect has blood oranges in season at the moment and I couldn't resist buying a bag. It never ceases to please me when I cut one and see the 'blood' inside, so vibrant and beautiful. I hadn't really planned what to do with them but found a delicious sounding recipe for blood orange cordial and had to give it a try. It was really easy and the recipe lends itself to any fruit based cordial. I cut down the sugar in my version as I like my cordial with a little more zing, and the oranges were quite sweet naturally. I'm planning on using this cordial with soda water...and maybe vodka.

Blood Orange Cordial

makes about 750ml

2 cups blood orange juice
1 cup white sugar
2 cups water

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and then simmer slowly until reduced by one third. Allow to cool in the pan and then strain into a sterilised bottle. Keep in the fridge and mix with soda or still water to taste.

Leftovers far "outwhey" the cleanup

On Saturday I hosted the first SkillCycle day at my house. Sure there was a bit of cleaning to do in preparation and a bit of clean up after, but the leftovers I have in my fridge far “outwhey” these negatives!

Sunday morning I feasted on Lucy’s leftover bread (which we made), toasted with leftover marmalade (which we made). Then I gave Lucy’s plum jam and apple tart a new life by mixing it’s innards into some of the leftover yogurt (which we made), that was really yummy.

Being a newbie to the idea of leftover whey from the cheese (which we made), I do what I usually do and googled “whey recipes”. I’m a slave to a recipe, but I rarely have major kitchen disasters because someone has already done that in coming up with the recipe! One of the first I landed on was for whey biscuits, not aussie biscuits, but southern American biscuits, like a savoury scone, see photo. These were perfect as they required fair amount of whey (which we made) and a hot oven, and I was already cooking the leftover bread (which we made) in a hot oven. So while the bread was cooking, I mixed up the biscuits, and baked them in the oven with the bread. I used butter instead of shortening, and they could have used a milk (or whey!) wash before baking to aid in browning. But they were ready in no time and delicious with some of cheese (which we made) for morning tea.

While googling for whey recipes, someone talked about a while sauce they had done using whey. I rarely go without a recipe, but white sauce is one I’m pretty familiar with, thanks to being chief gravy maker for Sunday roasts. White sauce is pretty much gravy in disguise. Just melt a tablespoon or so of butter, add equal quantity of flour and cook for a couple of minutes. Add a cup or so of liquid: this can be water, milk, stock or whey, and stir until thick, you can also add cheese, onions, and other yummy bits to your sauce.

I remember from living in southern America that biscuits are usually served with sauce or gravy of some sort. So for dinner I served up some whey biscuits doused in white cheese sauce made off whey (I’m calling it “Wheyte” sauce), and leftover salad from Saturday’s lunch. Yummo!

So in hosting a SkillCycle day, it’s not just dirty dishes that get left behind!!

First SkillCycle Day

Our first SkillCycle Day went off without a hitch Saturday! Nine of us met at Kate's house to share our skills and learn new ones. Kate welcomed us wih tea and pumpkin cake and then we got to work.


We started with my easy no-knead bread (recipe to follow) which I made with very basic ingredients.


Hannah gave us a demo on her technique for cheat's 'ricotta' and yoghurt.



We took a break for lunch digging into some of our delicious fresh bread and cheese. Next up was a jam making with Mel. She spoke about the importance of sterilising your jars and equipment and the benefits of boiling water baths for making safe preserves.


Mel will post her recipe for the tasty mandarin marmalade soon. Kate's turn was next and she ran us through some basic sewing skills, talked about the differences between regular sewing machines and overlockers and then knocked up a quick produce bag. Kate will hopefully post about this at a later date.

Overall I think they day went very well. Everyone went home with something made on the day, leaving with either some marmalade or some bread and hopefully a head full of ideas and inspiration.

Preparing for the day...

Kate, Hannah and I (Lucy) sat down for a meeting over afternoon tea (where we debuted the balsamic onions made last week and ate the rest of a jar of the pickles) yesterday to make sure we had everything sorted for Saturday's SkillCycle day. We want to ensure the day runs smoothly so lists were made and plans were hatched. We have decided that it will go something like this: first a demo on how to make my lazy girl bread, then yoghurt and ricotta making with Hannah. Hopefully we'll then have some yummy fresh bread and homemade ricotta for lunch. Then back to work with jam making and water bath preserving by Mel, followed by basic sewing skills and how to make your own produce bags by Kate. It will be a full day with lots on hands-on activity and hopefully everyone will leave with something made on the day!

We'll take plenty of photos and post an update after the weekend.

In a pickle...

I've always wondered about that saying...I guess being in trouble could be likened to being crammed in a tight space with vinegar and spices. At a stretch. Hmmm, they also say "in a jam". Maybe I should start a new saying? "Oh dear, I'm in a bit of a chutney!"

Mel mentioned in her last post that we also made a couple of other preserves from things we got on our market run. We found some lovely small cucumbers and some plum sized brown onions and couldn't resist making pickles! The cucs were turned into simple pickles with some apple cider vinegar, peppercorns and celery seeds. But we came across a tasty idea for the onions over at Cook (almost) Anything. We haven't tried the onions yet but the cucumbers are delicious! The recipe is a simplified version of a recipe found on one of my favourite blogs, Food in Jars.

Pickled cucumbers

makes about 5 small jars

1 kg small lebanese cucumbers
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup filtered water
2 teaspoons sea salt
celery seed and black peppercorns(but any spices will do)

Wash and dry the cucumbers. Chop ends off and slice into spears. Set aside.

Combine vinegar, water and salt in sauce pan and bring to a boil.

Put half a teaspoon of celery seed and half a teaspoon of peppercorns in each jar. Pack the cucumber spears into the jars tightly.

Pour the brine into the jars, leaving 1cm headspace. You may need more vinegar brine, if so, just mix up another batch in the ratio described. Put lids on the jars and boiling water bath them for 15mins. Resist eating them for at least a week to allow them to cure.