Shooting Bamboo for the Pantry

You don't have to shoot bamboo, though when you live in the subtropics, this time of year you would probably want to.This time last year, I spent some time with a dear friend who lives in the hills behind Mullumbimby.The micro climate there allows her to grow an amazing variety of food crops from stone fruit to sub tropical species.

In April her giant edible bamboo is sending up massive shoots that grow as you watch. I was happy to spend an afternoon harvesting and processing them.

Thick gloves, long sleeves and a machete are essential. Theses shoots are tough and covered in itchy hairs.

After trimming them at ground level, the outer leaves are stripped and the shoots cut in half lengthwise.


This exposes the wonderful pattern of chambers that will stretch to become the hollow interior of the bamboo stems that make them so structurally strong and flexible.. It made me want to rush off for some
paint and paper to do some block printing with them.


They are then cooked in salted water until they are softened and a creamy yellow colour.








Drained and rinsed, they are then ready to use, cryvac or bottle. They keep well in the fridge.







My respect for bamboo has grown another notch. Fast growing without fertilisers or chemicals, we have have the most fabulous source of  material for making structures, bowls and plates, simple garden stakes, woven baskets, fabric, fuel, food and medicine. It can stabilise slopes and riverbanks and there are varieties to suit all climates. Investigate this fabulous resource further:

http://www.bamboobody.com.au/ plants, pictures and a data base
http://www.bambooweb.info/  How why and what of bamboo

Blessings on us all

A bit cloudy they said, after a gloomy old weekend. Not looking forward to a day of shopping and cleaning.
Then a totally unexpected 7 ml of steady warm rain and now glorious sunshine.
The garden is totally luscious, my cupboards are full and the house is clean.

Perfick!

Bali Anyone?

afternoon office

In a desperate attempt to rediscover my muse, I took off to Bali for a week with two friends. We all had writing missions and had committed to be disciplined to produce a thousand words a day. Our villa was surrounded by high walls so the only distractions were the noise of an occasional motorbike or voices of people passing.on the gang. Each morning after a swim or yoga and breakfast we set ourselves a start time and chose ourselves a spot to set up. We agreed there would be no conversation until the next break time, which usually coincided with mealtimes.

inspiration

So, into the confronting silence, the blank screen and a mind busy with everything except the task in hand. A blank notebook, a pile of dog eared recipes with food stains and scribbles, a few reference books and a new lap top to do battle with. I shuffled paper for a while then began writing a list of contents - a blueprint of everything I planned to include. It felt a bit silly, like writing a book backwards, but from then on it was like painting with numbers.

There is something rather beautiful about silence that helps me to settle and focus, bring clarity to the task at hand. Now I'm home, silence and lack of distractions are rare. The luxury of time and space in a comfortable, supportive environment are a distant memory.Writing might be three hours with my lovely writing friends or a greeting on a birthday card. I have written a workshop, a proposal, and many shopping lists and am attempting to post a blog each week.. I have discovered to keep my writing alive, it is important to write everyday, no matter what form it takes.

The book remains as I left it, a massive 10,000 words in eight days.
Anyone want to come to Bali?

Learning is for Life

The other day, someone made a comment that resonated within me. The exact words are gone now but the gist was 'Don't say you can't do something - the way to learn how to do it is to go ahead and do it.' This seemed revelatory to me but when I mentioned it to other people, they ALL confessed that is how they approached everything. It seems that I have been lacking in either self esteem or the courage to open myself to failure for a long time.

I joined the new branch of University of the Third Age two years ago, hoping to be able to hop on board for all sorts of learning experience's served up on a plate. Instead, here I am administering a website with an alien format, producing a newsletter, taking minutes and stacking chairs. I am learning, not just new computer skills but patience with myself and others and growing an appreciation of the different skills and qualities we have to offer each other and the amazing results that happen when we work together.

Squishing last years three hour hands on presentation into an hours talk for our local Living Smart course was a challenge that provoked me into inventing new ideas,  Googling madly for the latest research and organising a new box of tricks to show people, I learnt lots of new things, they did too and sustainability awareness spreads a little further.

Teaching provokes me to learn and the joy of discovering something new makes it a joy, not a job. It's got to be time to advertise some workshops...especially some I've never done before!

Raining leaves and garden treasure

The weather is starting to change, the quality of light in the mornings, a slight chill in the air but summer temperatures continue. We have had two mls of rain over the last  three months, high winds and the ever present threat of bush fires. Clouds of dead leaves are raining down from the marri trees on the neighbours fence line. In the garden, the deciduous trees are crispy around their edges and the orchard and most of the garden beds are sleeping, a mat of yellow hay and wood chip mulch waiting for rain. Tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers are all finished, the nights too cold for fruit set and the pumpkins are starting to ripen.

The food forest that usually comes up in the gaps in the paving is reduced to chicory and English dandelion - tap rooted perennials. If it wasn't for them, the chickens would be very short on green food. Fortunately, you can take every leaf off and they will sprout away again quite happily, as will comfrey.
Its a great time to be pulling out the summer crops, cleaning seed, planning for the winter vegetables and sowing a few greens in anticipation of rain.

The strange summer weather has suited some plants, the night flowering jasmine has been flowering non stop. In the evenings you can imagine yourself somewhere tropical quite easily even if you do need a jumper some nights.
.  One small rhizome of turmeric came to me from a friend after she divided her pot last autumn and together with my pot of galangal, has been treated like a baby all summer.

After two summers the galangal is ready for dividing and eating. Hand watering this morning I found that my turmeric has sent out a wonderful flower stalk. It was well into spring before there was any sign of life, two leaves all summer, then this lovely surprise!

While we are all concerned about global warming and extreme weather, lets not forget to enjoy the wonder and delight of the ever changing potential of nature to adapt.

Perfect Pumpkin Pie

Many years ago, this pie recipe featured in an article written in The Sunday Times by Jan Oldham that reviewed a lunch bar called Kitchen Express that served wonderful home made pies, including this vegetarian one. The newspaper cutting has survived being tucked in various books and recipe files, being dribbled on and nearly set fire to. This week it has starred on Face book after I took it to a friends house for dinner so I thought it was time to pass it on. Perfectly timed for pumpkin season! Kitchen Express Pumpkin Pie about 2kg  Butternut pumpkin 1 uncooked 9 inch pastry shell 2 eggs 1½ cup Cheddar cheese, grated ½ cup spring onions, chopped 2 Tbsp mixed fresh herbs 2 pinches nutmeg ½ tsp each,salt and pepper ½ cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds) 8 Black olives, pitted

Preheat oven to 180C.

Deseed pumpkin. Cut into chunks and bake on an oiled oven tray till soft then peel and mash flesh.

If the skin is soft, you can mash the pieces in the food processor and retain all the nutrition that sits just below the skin. You should have about 4-6 cups of mashed pumpkin but the amount is not critical.

Bake pastry blind for a few minutes as per the instructions on the packet.

Mix pumpkin flesh with eggs, herbs, spring onions, nutmeg, salt and pepper and half the cheese.

Spoon filling into pastry and top with the remaining cheese. When making as individual pies, heap the pumpkin up like a little mountain before sprinkling with the pepitas.

Sprinkle with pepitas and arrange olives on top.

Bake for one hour in middle of oven for a large pie, 35-40 minutes for individual ones.

Allow to cool for 15-20 minutes before cutting a large pie so it can firm up.

TIP: Don't be shy with the fresh herbs, they are the secret to the success of this recipe. You can use basil, chives, sage, rosemary, parsley, celery leaf, marjoram, in any combination or your choice but do choose at least three different ones.

Autumn Harvest

A lovely workshop last weekend. Everyone worked really hard, cooked, cleaned, laughed a lot and ate well. I had my rangehood and a nasty kitchen cupboard cleaned by the girls trying out the cleaning properties of lemon...maybe they would do windows this week, or is that pushing my luck?

This weekend we are into a bit more hubble bubble for the second half. An all girls group this time, we will be heating the cauldrons to create hand cream and other treats. There will be more food too.

Here’s a recipe that everyone loved:

Five Minute Lemonade

1 Lemons or 2 limes

50g Sugar

Chop the whole lemon into 1 cm cubes and place in a heatproof jug.

To each lemon add 50g of sugar / rice syrup or honey, adjusting to suit your taste.

Add boiling water to cover, put a plate on top of the jug and leave for 5 minutes.

Process with a blender.

Add  500ml cold water.

Strain through a sieve into a jug half full of ice.

Drink immediately.
 In winter, make this with honey and add hot water and drink while hot.

There is rarely time to take a rest in the garden. In the gap between the workshops the quinces have been thumping to the ground. Massive things that would brain one of the chickens that so generously fertilises it all year, demanding to be rescued from the parrots. Four crates ready for sale and three basketfuls for us...and the figs are coming on too.

Better get back to the kitchen!

Tie up your tights

My father banned me from wearing stockings when I was a teenager. The poor man had seen far too many lumpy white legs bulging in his time, thought the idea of his young daughter in a suspender belt was far too much for him. Thank goodness that in the late sixties we saw the first stay up stockings, then came the revolution of panty hose.

Once we used to darn our stockings and glue them to our legs with nail polish when they laddered, now tights are so cheap to buy (and so much easier to wear) they have almost become a throw away item. It can get cold here and the extra warmth a pair of tights can give is often necessary.  At the beginning of each winter, I am thrilled when it turns out my drawer has pairs of cobwebbed with snags, sags, holes and runs.

It's exciting as a retired pair of tights is a great resource that can stretch to a long list of uses!

TOES 

KIDS

Classic use is to create ‘grass heads’ for children to grow.

To do this, cut the foot plus about 10 cm from the leg of the tights.

Place 1 tablespoon off grass seed in the toe and cover with cup of potting mix or sand.

Tie the open end into a knot that sits up tight to the filling.

Roll in your hands until round or oval in shape.

Add stick on or embroidered eyes at this stage if you like.

Fill a cup or glass with water and sit the head in it, so it rests on the rim while the tail hangs in the water.

Keep moist and watch grow.

BIRDS

I have experimented with filling these completely with wheat. In the hope I could hang them in the chicken pen for green feed. It didn’t work...the tights are too fine for the hearty wheat shoots and they get very congested.  Worth trying again with smaller seeds though.

FRUIT

Toe bags are useful to protect individual fruits from bird attack

They will simply slide over the larger fruits and their elasticity will hold them in place.To protect smaller fruit tie gently above the stem to secure.

You can also tie paper bags with thin ties. After all, you only get two feet per pair!

LEGS

My fave!

Begin by cutting the legs off the pant. Leave enough leg attached to tie a knot in.

Cut across the legs in 2 cm strips create a collection of useful rubber band type thingies that you can use to tie up your hair.

Cutting them into strips makes the most excellent garden ties. They will stretch for miles and are very gentle on the stems of plants. They are strong and durable and will survive a whole summer of intense heat before they lose their elasticity. Best of all, thgey stay put if you tie them in a bow so you can remove them easily!

If you need longer and wider strips for heavier jobs, cut each leg down the sides into two pieces.

PANTS

HANGING BASKET LINERS

Tie a knot at each leg hole.

Stretch the waistband over the sides of the basket. Pin in place with pegs while filling with potting mix, remove after adding your plants.

STAGHORN FERNS

Again, tie off the leg holes.

Slip the tights over a plank that is cut to the size of the backing board you require that has a predrilled hole in it for hanging.

Pull the pants up from the bottom over the timber.

While flat fill firmly with damp peat moss or sphagnum moss.

Tuck the fern pup into the waist line, leaving the shoots free, and tie with a long leg tie to secure if needed.

I also have a very nice clump of Spanish Moss (tillandsia usneoides) that has been growing nicely tucked into one of these ‘bags’ for two or three years.

ALL PARTS

Absolutely essential for making scarecrows

The pant tops make great heads if you don’t want to use tights for the rest...you can leave the legs on and create pony tails or twist them up into little topknots.

Take three pairs of tights.

Head

Cut the legs from one pair and tie off the pant legs to make a sack.

Stuff with straw and insert a broom handle or long stake.

Tie off the excess to secure tightly to the stick or wind around with gaffer tape. 

Body: Take the other two pairs.

Stuff fairly firmly with straw, including the legs.

One pair will be top of body and arms, the other will be hips and legs.

Tie knots at the ends of the ‘arms’ to shorten. You can knot again if you wish to create hands as well, remember to push some straw down so they are not ‘empty.’

Lay your body pieces on the ground and tuck one into the other to form the waist.

With a sacking needle and string or a bodkin with wool, sew together around the middle, rolling him over as you go. 

Dress your scarecrow .

Fix a crossbeam just below the head to support the arms then secure your scarecrow to his support.

If you would like him or her to pose on a chair or perch in a tree, cut the centre pole to the length of the body before dressing.

Books, babies and blow ups

The Perth Writer's Festival this year was a smorgasbord of rich and rewarding events,  On Sunday the majestic trees of the tropical garden hosted  the children's program and the previously sedate atmosphere of the University of WA came alive with colour and voices as the children explored writing, bookmaking, printing and sewn stories, played with  baby animals and magnetic letters and enjoyed storytelling and circus skills. 

The big red ball had appeared overnight, wedged under the library walkway - a big squishy ball to bounce off. Perhaps the most excitement was generated by the the inflatable lotus in the reflection pool, designed by renowned Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa, here for the Festival of Perth, which magically opened and closed as you watched.

Five Minute Lasagne

We have only had baby tomatoes ripen so far this year but we have millions of them. So when I spotted a bargain box of BIG juicy ripe tomatoes on a visit to the Sunday markets, I couldn’t resist.  A week later, I have fused my trusty food dryer, made  barbecue sauce, hands off chutney, raw tomato sauce, ratatouille and ratatouille flan, smoked and dried tomatoes and there are still some of them  awaiting my attention.

There is nothing like a glut to bring out some creative cooking. I have a very strong memory of the first time my Italian friend Luana, cooked lasagne for me many years. I have never asked her for the recipe - we always have so much else to talk about – but here is my version of what I remember.

It will take you less than five minutes to assemble and about forty minutes to cook. There are no amounts for ingredients, decide what size dish you want to make and keep on layering.

Deceptively simple, this is a light, fresh, elegant way to serve lasagne. The juices in the bottom had me sucking at the baking dish (á la Nigella!) before I did the dishes... Luscious!

Lasagne sheets

Large fresh tomatoes, sliced thickly

Fresh basil, whole leaves or torn

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

White wine

Begin by putting a very thin layer of white wine into the bottom of a dish.

Add lasagne sheets to cover.

Layer by covering with fresh tomato slices sprinkled with basil, drizzled with a little olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Only use a couple of leaves for each layer or the taste will be overpowering.

Continue for at least three layers of pasta, more of you like, ending with a layer of tomatoes.

Cover with foil, making sure that the foil does not touch the tomatoes as it will dissolve the aluminium. (Yuk!)

Bake 180C for 40 minutes. Remove foil and check pasta for doneness by piercing with a skewer. Allow to rest for ten minutes before cutting.

If desired, grill for a couple of minutes to brown the top.

Serve with freshly grated parmesan.

Three months since the fires...

The yellow wind blew fear a hundred miles and more

In search of the balm of an answer, only an error message on the screen

A panic then - seeking numbers, pressing options

Yesterday’s bland recorded voice     declares a smoke alert

I return to work without reassurance.

Where was I?

My return to the garden in November, after many months with a painful frozen shoulder was made in spectacular fashion, never one to do things by halves, I agreed to host some local permies as part of an open edible garden scheme. The garden had been ignored all winter, so there was plenty to do to get things 'up to scratch' for visitors. The weekend was inspiring, exploring other peoples gardens as well as sharing my own, meeting like minded people along the way.


Hot on the heels of this, the town was invaded by a thousand Harley Davidson riders who held their international meet here over the week. They had just left town when two devastating bush fires destroyed many homes and shook us all badly. 


The new year started very quietly, the erratic  hot and windy weather helped another bush fire, thankfully less dramatic. 


Now that school has gone back after the summer holidays, town is quiet, subdued in a business downturn.


With the Chinese new year, I feel the energy is changing. The white grape harvest has started and we have our free concerts in the park and outdoor movies at Cape Mentelle to entertain us. The summer vegetables are abundant and have me back busy in the kitchen. 


Bring on the year of the dragon!

Springing surprises

Half & half

The winter blues took hold in a big way this year, exacerbated by a very painful frozen shoulder and being home alone for eight weeks in the isolation of a country town in a cool climate. Four months and many days since the last blog or web site contribution, my writing frozen too.

I have always been a creature of the day, ready to sleep when the sun goes down, awake at first light. In winter I hibernate: knit, read, cook and write. I can talk on the phone for hours in winter, in summer I often choose not to answer it. With the lengthening days I find time to fit in time in the garden, walks, picnics and social activities and still have time to go work and keep the house running. By the of January I am often totally worn out, the long hot days  of the new year lending themselves to afternoon naps and sunset dips in the ocean.

Spring this year has bought weather changeable and extreme, alternating between warm/sunny and wet/wintry days and the garden is thriving on it. Splendid shows of poppies, jasmine and honeysuckle are vying for attention with some of the best flowering of bottle brush we have ever seen here. A massive show of "Graham Thomas" was quickly turned into a huge pile of yellow petals after wind and heavy rain. The third crop of weeds are shooting out of the ground and the fruit trees are showing a second flush of blossom - the first has already set fruit. 



This amazing rose appeared, half pink and half yellow. The second bud on the stem opened  exactly the same. 

All this activity has been impossible to ignore and has drawn me out of my cave and into the garden. 

I'm back!

Picking pomegranates with a pin

During the summer holidays when I was a child, pomegranates from Israel would appear in our local greengrocers. Until then, grapes were the most exotic fruit I had eaten and they, being expensive, were reserved for hospital visits. I would happily spend a week’s pocket money on one of these delicious red balls and assisted with a safety pin, would extract its glistening jewels of seeds to eat one by one.

I have an ongoing love affair with the pomegranate tree. I love its rich orange flowers, the colour of smoked salmon, its slightly scruffy habit and the fact that it never seems to know whether it is deciduous or not and the fact its seed sparkles like the most expensive jewels. I have a miniature pomegranate in a pot that produces fruit the size of a plum so must rely on friends for my supply.

Here, pomegranates ripen in late autumn/early winter arriving with the apples and mandarins. Six beautiful fruit came my way this week and I was determined not to waste them. The ‘boys’ are meeting for a barbeque tonight so I used this as an excuse to bake a cheesecake and make a pomegranate syrup topping. I made the base gluten free with ground pecans, Arnott’s Rice Biscuits and some added rice crumbs.

Here’s the recipe, it makes about a cupful:

Pomegranate Syrup

3 ripe pomegranates
Juice of one lemon

Honey or sugar

Roll two of the pomegranates on your bench till they are softened.

Cut in half around their ‘equator’ and juice with a citrus juicer.

Place the juice in a small saucepan with one tablespoon of water and the lemon juice.

Drop in a good slurp of honey (I used about 3 tablespoons) or the equivalent of sugar.
Do not use a strong flavoured honey (like I did!) as it will over power the flavour of the pomegranates.

Bring to the boil over a high heat and then simmer until thickened.

While this is happening, trim off the flower end of your last fruit. This is the spiky little cup opposite to the stem.

Cut the fruit into four segments. For perfect seeds, only cut through the skin layer and then peel it back.

With the segments in a bowl, gently rub the red seeds away from the yellow pith.

Make sure all pith is removed as it can be very bitter.
Drain in a sieve until needed.

When the syrup has reduced and become thicker, stir in the seeds, reserving a few for garnish.

Allow the syrup to cool before serving.

Use over cheese cake, ice cream or pancakes.

For more on these amazing fruits see: http://www.nirala-naturally.com/pomegranate.html

It's been a while....

Almost two months since my last post.


Life has been a whirlwind that seems to leave little time for the quiet creative spaces.


The glorious sunshine is distracting, drawing me out into the garden where there are fungi and glorious coloured leaves in abundance as autumn refuses to give way to winter.


I am waiting for the rain, those lovely cosy days indoors that make me slow down into creative hibernation.

Sticky stuff and spooky scenarios.

Our long hot summer has bought on an abundance of figs. The tree is alive with silver eyes and twenty eights.

Picking figs in my nightie one morning, I caught a glimpse of two red eyes watching...very spooky! I pin pointed where they were and went to get my camera. After bashing my way through the branches, chasing the red eye balls, I I had fig sap in my hair. Okay, soap and hot water will fix it. Well, the goo turned to something that closely resembled varnish, my hair knotted and sticky, worse than when I had started! I had visions of having to cut a great hunk out of my golden locks. I decided I needed some radical treatment.

Heading for the essential oils, thinking sticky, I selected trusty old eucalyptus .I often use it to remove stickers, bitumen marks, gum and stubborn labels from jars. I sloshed some on a paper towel and rubbed at the goo vigorously. After rinsing in cold water, my hair was free of tangled and sap, lovely and soft. Magic!

I was left pondering if it was the hot water that set the sap and what other properties fig sap might have? Mrs Grieves Herbal recommends fig sap for wart removal (but warns it may raise blisters on normal skin as it creates inflammation.) Fig leaves can be used to produce a natural yellow dye when used with alum as a mordant and it turns out that they belong to the same family as the India rubber plant, ficus elastica (isn’t that a great name?)

It turned out that the eyeballs were the work of the silver eyes who had eaten a cave into the sunny side of the fruit with two little pecks facing me. A few interesting photos and a mystery solved. I took my unsticky self and my basket of figs off to breakfast. - another day of amazement in the garden! 

Sweet potato what?

I had a present from the big smoke recently. Amita, at the Chinese shop, found these gluten free noodles made from sweet potatoes. They were bright green in the packet and had a vaguely unpleasant earthy smell to them. The way the delightful green faded away reminded me of the way that purple beans turn disappointingly green during cooking and made me suspect it was a natural colour. After I boiled them as I would pasta, the texture was very much like cellophane noodles although not as bland and looking like a fat spaghetti.

 We ate them in a black bean and tofu vegetable stir fry we both enjoyed.  

Autumn invasion

We are in the second week of autumn, the mornings have an edge of change and days are appreciatively shorter. No rain though and the garden is looking very sad. Most of the summer veg are over and the beds lie empty under their straw blankets. Comparatively lush compared to the surrounding bush, we have become a magnet for creatures looking for food and water.

A plague of rats and mice, ants and fleas has been followed by grasshoppers of all shapes and sizes and twenty eight spot ladybirds (henosepilachna spp.) One eating the snow peas (optimistically planted under shade), the other shredding the leaves of the eggplants.

A deadly night shade had been acting as my trap plant for the ladybirds. It had got to the stage where it was almost lace.  When I went to pull it out I discovered a bug I had never seen before. Very sinister, looking like a cross between a giant mealy bug and a bright yellow slater. I waded through page after page of nightmares trying to identify it. Creatures that could eat, saw, cut nibble and suck the very life from your garden and only be controlled by toxic chemicals.

After some careful reading, I came across the answer...these little devils were the larval stage of the pesky 28 spot lady birds. Clustered on the base of the stem, they were biding their time to begin to head leaf ward as ladybirds. Another little mystery solved and another little snack for the chickens.

See more about natural pest control here.  

Talking to bread

After two weeks, I was heartily sick of eating fluffy gluten free bread. Since my first attempts at sour dough I have been an addict at breakfast time especially. As I was unable to find a recipe for gluten free sour dough anywhere so my first attempt was unaided. I was really pleased with the results so I will share them with you.

You will need to make/borrow/beg a sour dough starter. I used my rye starter which I had removed from the fridge and 'fed' the day before starting.

Bread making is an art rather than a science, so don't worry too much about times or weights and measures. The process of sourdough cannot be hurried. It will however, proceed quite happily without much intervention on your part. It is easiest to start 24 hours before you want to bake. I begin the 'sponge' after dinner, knead the bread after breakfast then bake while cooking dinner the next day.

Don't be put off by the length of this recipe, I have tried to explain the processes for bread beginners. If you have made bread before, you can skip a lot of it.

You will need:

2 C room temperature water

1 C of 'refreshed' sour dough starter 

3 C plus 2 C gluten free plain flour 

75g ground linseed

½ C sunflower seed

1 ½ tsp salt

0 hour: Making the sponge (nothing to do with cake)

Mix the wet ingredients in a bowl.

Add 3C of flour and all other ingredients except the salt in a large mixing bowl.

Mix to a thick batter.

Place in a plastic bag and cover with a cloth. Do not seal the bag, you need to let the dough breathe but you don't want a crust forming. Sit in a draught free place.

8-12 hours: Kneading and shaping.

The batter will have risen slightly in the centre and have a sponge like appearance when the surface is disturbed. This means that the natural yeasts and bacteria in the sourdough have been activated and are producing bubbles of carbon dioxide.

Oil a loaf tin.

Stir the salt into the sponge. This is important to stop the work of the bacteria that inhibit the natural yeasts that aerate the dough.

Sprinkle some of the remaining 2 C of flour onto your bench and scrape the sponge onto it.

Flour your hands and begin to work the extra flour into the dough by pulling a little dough from the edge that sits at 12 on the clock with your fingers and pushing it back into the centre firmly with the heel of your hand.

Swivel the dough ¼ turn and repeat, adding extra flour to the bench as you need to until it it possible to form it into a loaf shape. Continue until the flour is used up. You can add a little more if you need to as all flours vary in moisture content.

The dough will remain heavy and sticky but should be dry enough that your hand doesn't stick to it. The texture is not crucial, gluten free dough's are always 'wetter' than those made with high gluten flour

At this stage, bread dough's are tested by pushing a finger into the dough to form an indent. If it springs back, the gluten has been activated and you can stop kneading. I tried this with the gluten free loaf and after a lot of kneading it did spring back slightly.

Shape into a rough loaf, place in the oiled tin and press dough down to an even thickness.

Return the tin to your plastic bag and cover again. Leave to rise (or proof.)

12-24  hours: Baking

Preheat you oven to 200˚.

Your loaf should have now doubled in size. If it hasn't, leave it a little longer.

Bake for 35 - 40 minutes or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it.

Cool on a rack, covered by a cloth.

Sourdough keeps really well without refrigeration. It is better toasted if you keep it in the refrigerator or freezer. If you want to eat it fresh, keep it in a cool place.

If you have made bread before you will find this dough is very different from bread with gluten. The results were very pleasing - even bubbles, a firm texture, not soggy and slicing well with a lovely sour dough aroma and it is still looking good after 6 days! Don't be discouraged if your first result is not perfect. Remember that the dough is a living being. It needs food, water, warmth, moisture and care, to rest undisturbed and responds to being talked to.

Enjoy!