A not too conventional story

Here I am at 50, still in the pink of my condition, beautiful wife, a job that I love, great friends that I don’t have to see too often, gorgeous house in the middle of the woods, a Ford Ranger, with Bruce Springsteen on Sirius radio, healthy kids, great garden and (more…)

Keep the beans moving so they don't burn.

For the past 7 years I have been roasting our household coffee in the wood oven , and while I don’t claim to be an expert, I have now roasted over 300 times and you can’t help but learn a few things along the way.

First thing , Why bother ? Well, by buying green beans you will find it a whole lot cheaper than at the gourmet coffee store . I can buy organic, shade tree, fair trade , ethical coffee, in bulk delivered to my door in the Canadian outback for $4 a lb. That very same stuff roasted can cost you from $12 -$16. You can get regular non organic Brazilian for much, much less. (more…)

So now it’s winter.  That doesn’t mean you are going to stop cooking in your WFO does it ?  Of course not …. While cold weather can affect the fire in your oven, it can have an even bigger affect on the oven operator. Get a warm , non flammable coat that you can sacrifice … there will be soot! I draw my line in the snow at -20C , below that I prefer to (more…)

Hello to all, this oven design is FANTASTIC to say the least. Here’s a few shots of the oven, pizza, leg of lamb, YUMMY! I am SO glad I went with this, I fire up at 10:30 Sat. Morning after coffee, get things ready for pizza at noon, prep the bread for after pizza time while the wife gets going on what she wants to roast for dinner. Cooking time well organized. It is so easy, and the cooking time with all the insulation effort has been well worth it. After cooking dinner one Sat., I closed the oven door, Sunday, LATE afternoon, around 6 pm I went to the oven, opened the door to check the temp, it was still at (more…)

To celebrate finishing the chimney and almost all the rendering we fired up the oven.

Picture 1. The finished chimney – And also the render on the whole wall is done and it is drying up nicely.

Picture 2. Blackwood slab for making pizza/bread paddle – At the same time I decided to make a wooden peel for loading the pizzas. We already have a metal one for unloading but I thought a wooden one would be fun to make. (more…)

Simple pizza. It’s now Autumn here and we’ve just enjoyed a happy and successful day of fun with our oven (building progress). Family were coming over for lunch so I started the fire at around 8.15 in the morning. Because of the fairly large amount of mass to heat it does take a while for the soot to disappear from the inside of the oven. Possibly I was not adding enough mass of wood. A note on firewood. I have been using very dry Yellow Box Eucalypt which is very dense and gives very good heat. Belinda had been busy making dough and by midday we (more…)

Podravka vegetable relish. My Grandma in Bratislava always used to have it for me. This is the vegetable relish spread in the glass jar. I used to love it as a child and I still love it.

Those days that spread brand product was called Saba but I don’t remember its producer, i’ll try to find out. At home we used to call it pikant. I remember the nick name pikant was used by every one. The irresistibly rich flavour spoke for its self. Lots of people knew pikant and so did all kids that I knew. This mix gives good rich flavour also to various sauce dishes. I was always sweet chilly and pepper fan, (more…)

For 4 serves you only need 2 medium size papaya or 1 larger one, 250g of yogurt (I use natural or vanilla yogurt), 2 big table spoons of honey and 1 table spoon of lemon juice. How to do this, cut the papaya into smaller cubes and place into the bigger bowl, in separate bowl mix together yogurt, honey and lemon juice (for this I use hand mixer as it makes the yogurt mix smoother and distributes the honey evenly). Pour the yogurt mixture onto the papaya and mix, decorate with mint leaves if you wish. Enjoy! (more…)

Duck grease instead of lard fat.

Fat or grease and gelatin can be produced, collected and stored from roasting organic ducks and other poultry like turkey, goose or chicken. What do you do if you don’t eat pork(?), and as on purpose right the recipe you found calls for lard. Or you might want to eat a better fat stuff (in those rare occasions really.) Can you satisfy yourself? Like with the pecan pie recipe. Well, you can make your own lard and such that tastes much better.

If I can do it, you can do it easy. (more…)

my Pecan pie. Ever since I learned, that my friend Mark baked pecan pie I wanted to try to bake one myself. I found one recipe in a magazine from our local library and then gradually I tried to make it perfect. For some weeks I baked this pie when we had friends coming over, every time adjusting the recipe a bit. So here is another TNT (Tried N Tested) pecan tart recipe. If I can do it, you can do it easy.

Pecans are very healthy for our heart actually! I almost wrote “for our hearth” which would be true too. (more…)