What a delicious workshop October hosted! Sourdough, but not the traditional dark sourdough.
Chris showed us how to make gorgeous contemporary sourdough featuring flavours such as honey and oats and chili and capsicum.

Now, for anyone who wants to know more, or who lost their web link from Chris, head over to gullygrove.blogspot.com.au for tutorials and recipes.

There have been requests for a soap making class...most of the SLT people have already participated in this before. But, if there are others out there who haven't yet had the chance to learn, now is a great time. Cold process soap takes 6 weeks to cure, so if you learn and start making some now you'll have a beautiful stash of home made soap for Christmas gifts!

This class will be held at Birdsong Market Garden, Tuesday October 10th, 7pm. Bookings essential

Cost $25, which will include a recipe sheet and some goodies to contribute to your first batch of soap :-)

To book, go to birdsongmarketgarden.com.au/

This question pops up at just about every class...and understandably. Because when you're learning to make your own cleaning products, beauty products and health products, you'll often come across ingredients that you've either never heard of, or have never seen available in your local stores.

And many a time when I'm asked this, it's the same answer I give, because so many of the more unusual ingredients are available in one place. N Essentials www.n-essentials.com.au/shop/oils/essential-oils/page/2/

I think I originally found N Essentials because I wanted some cocoa butter. First of all I tried the health food shop, and just couldn't bring myself to pay $30 for this tiny little 250g package of cocoa butter! Especially when some recipes call for that much in one hit! So upon looking online, I found N Essentials sold a whole kilo of cocoa butter for $33. Much better. And it's organic unrefined cocoa butter :-) I know the website clearly states it's not to be taken internally, but I actually used it in a herbal cardamom chocolate mouse cake and in making dairy free chocolate, along with using it in DIY beauty products and soap. And I lived to tell the tale.

 And while checking out the N Essentials site www.n-essentials.com.au/ I found a vast array of other items I'd seen in recipes we wanted to try at home...like evening primrose oil, argan oil, castor oil, shea butter, bentonite clay, rose water, jojoba oil and essential oils at prices much more affordable than I'd seen elsewhere.

Essential oils that are free of carrier oils, additives and are actually pure (not chemically produced) are something you use often in all these DIY recipes. While I use medicinal/therapeutic grade essential oils for our first aid and healing, those therapeutic grade oils are a bit too good (and pricey) for things like soap, candles and some cleaning products. For example, I saw a soap recipe that called for 5ml of Rose essential oil. Now, therapeutic grade rose oil can cost about $350 for 5ml! There's no way you'd put that in soap. And I saw another soap recipe calling for 5ml of helichrysum essential oil. But 5ml of the therapeutic grade costs about $130! Again, you wouldn't put in soap, or anything else non-healing related!
But on the other hand, you don't want to use low-grade 'essential' oils that most likely have additives and defeat the purpose of making your own pure products. I've had essential oils from ebay that fit this category. They very obviously smelled like they had carrier oils and/or additives in them. And please never buy or use the fake essential oils from $2 shops. You can't produce real essential oils at those prices, they don't smell genuine and I don't consider them safe to use.

N-essentials essential oils are great for these DIY recipes where you want quality, but don't need it to be therapeutic grade quality. They are totally pure, no carrier oils or additives. I tried the frankincense, bergamot and sweet orange essential oils from N Essentials and was especially impressed with the frankincense. I used it in soap, homemade kitchen spray and candles and found it held it's scent beautifully. The citrus oils were also used in soap and then washing powder. They performed well also. I think they have about 70 different essential oils to choose from. And they are stored in amber glass bottles, or metal bottles for the larger quantities (1L bottles available), which is vital with essential oils, that are compromised by plastic.

I haven't tried them myself, but N Essentials are now also stocking soap colouring powders, dried flowers/plants for soap and even soap nuts! So it's a very convenient place to collect your soap making supplies in one hit.

Hopefully this helps you as you hunt down all the new ingredients like essential oils you need for those recipes you want to try at home :-)

As many of you would know, SLT isn't running a September class, there's so much happening with Carnival of Flowers etc. I'm hoping to run something from Birdsong (located in Cranley, next to Toowoomba) in these Spring school holidays, but we had a terminally ill family member and I didn't want to arrange anything when we didn't know how long he had left. He died Sunday just gone, so now we await funeral details.

If it works out, we'll try and run a soapmaking class again, as people have asked when the next one will be. If you are interested, make sure you are on the SLT mailing list, as that is where details will be sent through. Sorry it will likely be short notice, but life's been like that lately!

It may sound disgusting, but after a thorough cleaning of the hooves, making broth from them is very nutritious. I remember reading Pollyanna to the children and Pollyanna had to take "Calf's Foot Jelly" to crabby old Mrs Snow, the invalid. Calf's foot jelly? That caught my attention, as I'd heard mention of making broth with hooves, and due to the high collagen in hooves (that's what they make a lot of gelatin from) the broth can be so rich that it literally sets like jelly.

So when we were killing 3 sheep it was decided we'd give this a go. Sheep's hooves are obviously dirty to start with. So here I've taken them out of a stockpot where I had the soaking while we gutted the sheep, and then laid them out on netting to gurni down.

I gave them a good spray and then returned them to the soaking pot.

Next they need the hair removed. Apparently some people use a knife to dehair them, but that was hard! It felt like we were wasting time, so I made use of my 10 year old son's love of playing with knifes and paid him $5 to skin them for me!

I gave them another hit with the gurni and then returned them to the soaking pot for another 24 hours.

Then back to the netting for another gurni the hooves went. By this time they were MUCH cleaner. The reason the cleaning process takes a few days is because there's some hard packed dirt in those hooves, and soaking really helps soften it for removal. Every time we soaked, we put fresh water in the soak pot too. And we let the pot sit in the cold room (fridge would be fine) while soaking. If you don't have a gurni, I'm sure some scrubbing brushes or scourers could get the job done.

Finally the hooves were ready for stock! I used the large slow cooker and 2 of the hooves with the usual vinegar, veg and seasonings and let it simmer away for 48 hours. The results were impressive! The broth came out a lovely deep colour and had a nice thickness to it. And interestingly enough, I've been eating some soup I made with it each day, and I'm the only one in my family of 8 who hasn't been hit hard with the flu!

So Pollyanna must have been onto something taking a sick woman some calf's foot jelly!

Hi All, Margy here!  As promised, here are some links to some great websites and information about reducing our waste.  

Every piece of plastic that you have ever used still exists!
 
Refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, rot – in that order – Zero Waste Home.

• ABC War on Waste - http://www.abc.net.au/ourfocus/waronwaste/  
• Plastic Free July - http://www.plasticfreejuly.org/
• Zero Waste Home - https://zerowastehome.com/about/tips/
• Slow Your Home - http://slowyourhome.com/169/ - 50 ways to (seriously) reduce your food waste
• Going Zero Waste - https://www.goingzerowaste.com/
• Keep Cup - reusable coffee cups – http://au.keepcup.com/
• Onya Bags – produce bags etc - https://www.onyalife.com/
• Covers for bowls - https://mystudiobellingham.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/make-your-own-bowl-cover-tutorial/
• Soft Plastics Recycling – Coles  
• Redcycle - http://www.redcycle.net.au/
• Take own containers to take away food places
• The Source Bulk Foods - https://www.facebook.com/thesourcebulkfoodstoowoomba/ - 292 Ruthven St – opening soon!
• Richmond Valley Council Weekly Organics Service - http://www.richmondvalley.nsw.gov.au/page/Community_Services/Landfills_Waste_Collection_Services_and_Recycling/What_goes_in_which_bin/ - how good would it be if we had something like this in Toowoomba.  Let Toowoomba Regional Council know what you think - http://yoursay.tr.qld.gov.au/
• Little Seed Restaurant, Toowoomba – 80c off coffee if you bring your own cup - http://littleseedrestaurant.com.au/
• Boomerang Bags - http://boomerangbags.org/
• Planet Ark – plastic bag reduction - http://schoolsrecycle.planetark.org/documents/doc-854-plastic-bags-factsheet-2012.pdf
• Tim Silverwood on circularity, connection and saying no to plastic - podcast - http://slowyourhome.com/181
• Toilet paper wrapped in paper - https://au.whogivesacrap.org/

Pictured: Beeswax wraps being used as wrapping paper...kind of like furoshiki :-)

What a great turn out we had for the War On Waste Workshop! Thanks to Margy for her research beforehand and helpful tips...and to our two reps from Council who informed us what can and can't be recycled in our region, how to worm farm and how to compost.

We also had a wealth of knowledge coming from the audience, and it's plain to see this is becoming a passion for a lot of people who want to make a change in the footprint we leave on this earth.

We also had the beeswax wraps demo. As I said at the class, there are multiple ways to make these. You will need cotton fabric (synthetic doesn't play nice, and also defeats the purpose of going to the effort of making a natural product/alternative to cling wrap).

You will also need beeswax, which is often available at the PCYC Sunday Markets in Toowoomba. It's also available online, but it's heavy, so consider the postage costs! And the packaging it creates in having to be posted to you. There is a local beekeeping club, Southern Beekeepers, who may also be able to link you up with some local beeswax.

We demonstrated the beeswax/resin/oil version of these wraps at the class.
Ratio is 1 part pine rosin (2 heaped Tbsp) to 4 parts beeswax (8 heaped Tbsp) and then it was about 1Tbsp of argan oil. You do NOT need to use argan oil. Olive, jojoba and others are fine. I just happened to have argan oil that was a year over it's use by date, so I used it.

After experimenting with a few methods, I found it much better to get a solid glass jar in a saucepan and double boil the wax/rosin/oil mix to melt and blend the ingredients together. This is primarily because the pine rosin 'powder' I ordered had way too many lumps in it that made a mess of the original wraps I made when I was sprinkling the wax/resin mix on the fabric that way.

While this is melting, turn your oven on to about `150 C. I experimented with using a heat gun and hair dryer instead of the oven, but the oven gave the best results for sure!

So when all that wax/resin is melted (and it will likely need a stir every now and then), shut off the heat and leave the water in the saucepan as it helps keep the mix in it's molten state while you work.

Grab a cookie sheet/baking tray and lay your cotton fabric out on that. If you are making a wrap that is larger than your tray, that's not a problem, just fold the fabric in half.

Pour some of your mix onto the fabric and use a silicone brush, or the back of a dessert spoon to spread the wax mix a little. Don't worry if it's uneven or not completely covered, the oven will do the rest for you. Also don't worry if you poured too much wax mix on. It will be there on your tray for the next wrap you make.

Now pop your tray in the oven and you shouldn't need anymore than 5 minutes for the wax to spread and soak into your entire cloth. If you have a folded cloth in there, you'll possibly need to spread the wax around manually when you pull it out. But generally the oven does the work for you.

When you pull your tray out, you need to fairly quickly lift the wrap off the tray and let any excess mix drip off it. I used my fingers, but yes, there is a chance you'll burn yourself, so you can use tongues if you like. If you are near an open window that helps the setting process, or just give the wrap a gentle swish through the air for a minute, it will set very quickly and then you can put it down on the bench or where ever...just not somewhere hot!

That's it! Pretty simple. You can do this without the pine rosin, but it has more stick/cling factor if you use rosin. I got mine through Etsy (online). It  was about $30 for 500g and I think that included postage.

A note on cleanup...resin/rosin and wax are messy! You can resurrect the baking tray you use by pouring boiling water over it. But it's much harder to recover the glass jar you use so pick something you don't mind being waxy for the rest of it's days :-)

Nourishing Traditions Intro Workshop


Bone broth, kefir, kombucha, soaked grains, activated nuts, DIY baby formula, cultured cheeses, raw dairy, fermented foods and beverages and more. Though these items are slowly becoming household names, some are still unfamiliar and even confusing to people.


Nourishing Traditions is the reference book and cookbook based on research by Weston A Price in the 1930's. He was a dentist with a passion for researching diets of traditional/untouched people groups around the world (who happened to have 99% perfect dental health) and this book puts his findings into practice. This type of lifestyle is especially of interest for people with gut disorders.


In this workshop we'll demonstrate how to prepare these foods/drinks, sample them and look at ways to heal and nourish your body through diet.


When? Wednesday August 23rd, 1pm


Where? Birdsong Market Garden, 118 Boundary St, Cranley, 4350


Cost $20 per adult and you'll go home with an info sheet and an item to get you started (ie jar of sauerkraut, or a kombucha scoby, or a jar of milk kefir)


Contact Racheal Cameron racheal@birdsongmarketgarden.com.au or 0431696234 to book or for more info

Most of you know by now the War on Waste class is going ahead. If you want to know more, email Margy at simplelivingtoowoomba@gmail.com to join the mailing list.

There's been an exciting update...Margy has spoken to Onya www.onyalife.com/about/, who produce reusable produce bags, cups, shopping bags and more. They're excited about what we're doing and are donating some reusable produce bags to giveaway at the workshop! They're also offering ever participant 15% off vouchers for their store! So thanks very much to Onya for their support!

I plan to giveaway the beeswax wraps we demonstrate at the workshop also, so there will be a few nice opportunities to get you started on the plastic-free journey at our workshop this month.

We regularly have a homemade/homegrown swap before SLT workshops, and when watching the War On Waste Series, I loved the way the street of people on the plastic free challenge had a little event where they brought their unwanted clothes, kitchen items etc and swapped among themselves. They also made cakes etc out of leftovers rather than wasting the leftover food.
If you have items you want to pass on, bring them along. There is a little op shop at our venue, Range Christian Fellowship, so if you bring giveaways and they're not taken, there's always the op shop to leave them at.

Not a Simple Living Toowoomba workshop, but one you might be interested in...

Belle Bouquets are running a paper flower making workshop in August and details are here: bellebouquets.com.au/blog/product/paper-flower-workshop/