Permaculture Festival AND the Festival of Light over my birthday Weekend, I am so excited! ~ Mariella

I am looking forward to the weekend already! Yes I am aware that it is Monday, but it’s my birthday on Saturday and Diwali (Hindu Festival of Light) on Sunday and the Garden Route Permaculture Festival is happening all weekend. I have much to look forward to, but in essence, this year, my party is being arranged by others and that just makes me smile!

Permaculture is a design system which takes its cue from nature which is completely self-sustaining with its beautiful mesmerizing interlocking of micro and macro eco-systems. You don’t ever hear a voice from deep within the planet say, oops I didn’t think of that! Everything in Nature works, and there's much to be learned from that. So permaculture, as I see it, is about emulating the efficiency of nature in designing a lifestyle that works, completely and entirely! Delving into the principles of permaculture and applying them to every aspect of your life from feeding and housing your family to what you do all day every day for a living, gives you the earnest possibly of harnessing and controlling outcome. An unorganized thing is a chaotic thing which constantly yields unwelcome surprises, learning about Permaculture develops in you a real sense of planning before doing and shows you how! I love it, and am learning all the time but learn faster in in a facilitated environment so I signed up for the GRPF immediately!  

They’re going to have speakers covering subjects like 'Permaculture : Balancing People & Planet', Swop Shops: A Green Economic Model for a Cleaner Environment, Challenges Around Urban Food Security & The Need for Social Permaculture at Food Systems Scale, Natural building materials : properties and proper applications,empowering conscious consumers, propagation (how to grow from seeds and cuttings) Compost Making, Earthworms, Garden Bed Design, Companion Planting, Tree Planting and Grey Water Management Systems. I have a keen interest in all these subjects and even though our Vegetable garden works, there is so much room for improvement and growth. I’m  also looking forward to the networking which will happen over the 2 days, meeting people from all over South Africa who live in this frame of mind and asking..asking..asking questions until I get it! The Garden Route can feel a little cut off from the developments occurring in the rest of the world and I’m looking forward to the green market happening in between talks.  And then there’s the music line-up for the evening! There’ll by a ‘blits barter’ at some point which I think is just fantastic to illuminate the old concept of non-monetary currency!

The Festival of Light happens on Sunday! We've been fortunate enough to celebrate the festival of light in Plettenberg Bay for the last five years thanks to the hard work of a Plett local whose key focus is to propagate peace and unity in Plett! The theme this year is ‘Knowledge is power’ and the entrance is free but everyone is encourage to donate a book. This is a non-denominational event for people of all cultural and religious backgrounds to celebrate unity and again, there will be music, theatre, poetry and talks throughout the day and into the evening and a candle lighting moment in the night. I am utterly excited!

Check out Garden Route Permaculture Festival 

on www.ecosynergyevents.co.za

https://www.facebook.com/events/710625095630070/permalink/758441387515107/

And contact Vinthi Neufeld on 082 825 9811 if you’d like to find out more about the Festival of Light. 

https://www.facebook.com/events/669121749764839/

See you there!

Its Artichoke season now! ~ Mariella

The globe artichoke is a variety of thistle cultivated as a food. The edible bits are the flower buds and their stems when harvested before the flowers blooms. The plants usually bear several flowers. Although the flowers are so so pretty, once you’ve allowed them to bloom they are no longer edible.

I am very excited to announce that it is officially artichoke season right now! We have one plant and it is yielding beautifully and we have our first artichokes for supper tonight along with Broad beans out of the garden fried up with homemade Paneer cheese (recipe to follow!). We don’t share well, so we've waited for the right amount to be ready for the plucking. There are many interesting recipes out there but I always make artichoke the way my mamma taught me, simply!

I leave a 5 cm stem on the Artichoke and try my best to wash it, organically grown Artichoke can sometimes reveal unwelcome creepy crawly surprises! The stem is edible when not too mature; if yours is tough just eat the inside.

Steam the whole artichoke until you can easily pierce the heart through the underside of the flower, ie: from the stem up, with a sharp knife. If it goes in easily, it’s done. Be patient, there’s no fun in short changing yourself by under-cooking it, another way to double check is to pull the base leaves off, if they come off easily, it’s done.

Then we simple tear off the leaves one at a time and dip the base of each leaf into a dip made from olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper and scrape off with our teeth! So delicious! When we get to the heart we remove the fine hairs and discard as they tickle the throat and shouldn’t be eaten, although my dad used to show off by eating the whole thing! 

Then the yummiest thing ever is to allow the heart to marinade in the mix for as long as humanly possible before eating.  

So simple and there is nothing quite like that sweet taste of fresh artichoke heart melting into your taste buds! Mmm delectable!   

How to boil up Beans and Pulses ~ Mariella

It occurred to me the other day that many people don’t know how to cook pulses. I hadn't realized this until I went to a friend’s house who had been soaking beans for many a day wondering all the while why they weren't getting soft enough to fry up and eat! The beans, having been in water for some time, were now frothing and burbling and just about ready to get up and walk away of their own volition. So here’s a quick informational on how to turn a bag of dry beans/chick peas/lentils etc into an ingredient you can actually eat! Whenever I prepare pulses I do the entire pack, that way I save on electricity and time.

Step 1

Start off with organically grown dry goods if possible. Search through the bag for stones and other debris! You can do this by pouring out small quantities at a time into a flat white plate and then tipping them into the pot you intend to use. Trust me, you don’t want to skip this part, let’s just say, I was unpopular with a guest for a while but he didn’t send dentist bills! 

Then soak contents in water overnight. Remember that the pulses will swell up to to about double their size and you don’t want them rising above the water as they wont soak evenly so use a big enough pot and add enough water. Soaking beans reduces cooking time by up to 70%, it also preserves the most proteins, vitamins and minerals. Also, beans are dusty. 

Pulses all have different hardness’s, therefore they require different soaking times and are best boiled up separately. Split lentils don’t require soaking and whole lentils and mung beans can benefit from an hour. All the other beans like sugar beans, kidney beans, chickpeas would be best soaked overnight.

Step 2

Drain out the water, add new fresh water and bring to the boil over high heat. Once it starts boiling reduce, and allow to bubble away until the beans are soft all the way through. Make sure the beans are completely under water otherwise they won't cook evenly. This could take anywhere between 45 min to 1.5 hrs, depending on the beans. Soya beans take ages!

Key point: Do not add salt or sugar while boiling as adding them at this stage will make the pulses more difficult to digest and may cause bloating.

Once you’ve cooked them until soft, strain through a colander and allow to cool, don’t keep the water. Pour into single or double portion bags and freeze. Whenever you want to make beans for supper, just take a bag out in the morning or plop into hot water to defrost. When you make a dish with them you can then add the salt and other spices as needed.  

Voila simple and easy and you’re not buying cans of beans coated with enzyme mimicking plastics which are just baaaad for you!