Pumpkins and Ginger Beer
30/09/2011 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaThere were so many inspiring things at last week's weird and wonderful hippie festival that Izzie could not wait to get the old green fingers into action before all the enthusiasm would fade away into the realms of 'one day' wishful thinking
Not least was the stall selling real ginger beer for one silver sickle for an icy cold glass of the stuff. It was cold, dry, very bitey and definitely delicious.
The next day turned up half way through a demonstration of how to make this stuff by the same guy who had been selling it on Saturday.
He also had copies of the recipe and at the end when most of the folks had wandered off and only the seriously curious were left, he gave away several bottles of 'plant' which is the ginger beer equivalent of sourdough starter.
Izzie asked if you could use crystalized ginger or grated fresh ginger. He assumed so but had only ever used ground ginger himself.
Realized that the silly Izzie did not have any suitable bottles. He uses the old beer bottles with stoppers which he gets off Ebay.
Wine bottles would just not cut the mustard we thinks. They would blow up within a day or two. Anyway did find one single water bottle in the broom cupboards with just such a stopper so went and did the deed. Had originally intended to make this stuff on Wednesday in case the bottle of plant was getting cranky at not getting its daily diet of sugar and ginger top ups.
Did not follow the recipe to the letter as that required 24 cups of water. So just completely guessed with the water, sugar and orange juice (had no lemon juice on hand but a tree full of rather sour and small oranges)
It's supposed to take a week or so before it is ready to drink. If it does not blow up the house before then.
Decided that we definitely do not want to make this stuff again unless there's some place to pour and store all 20 something cups of it. But once we do get it right, it will be a very cheap and tasty drink.
Did that around the time that some chunks of pumpkin and whole cloves of garlic were baking away.
The day light hours were devoted to setting up a proper vegie patch. Doing the ground work - literally. Also moved the ring of rocks around the rather sad and lame looking macadamia tree over to the mango nearby. The macca had been quite happy and healthy for most of its ten year existence until the summer from hell this year. Did not help that the silly Izzie pruned it in autumn only to discover that most of the nuts form on last year's new branches. It's only got a third of the leaves that it usually has this time of year.
If potash, kitty litter and earth potion do not work their magic, then maybe we will resort to running some sort of creeper up the tree to hide the too many bare branches.
But the biggest excitement of the week is signing up to a Living Smart course presented by the evil geniuses behind last week's strange green street festival.
It starts in three weeks time in the Shenton Park community centre. While preference will be given to locals of the area, Izzie's still in with a chance.
Tomorrow will be time to peek through all those seed packets and plant tomato, chili and pumpkin seeds. There's also all those wattles and banksia seedlings that still need to find a little spot in the ground
It's supposed to be raining on Monday so got to make the most of it.
Not least was the stall selling real ginger beer for one silver sickle for an icy cold glass of the stuff. It was cold, dry, very bitey and definitely delicious.
The next day turned up half way through a demonstration of how to make this stuff by the same guy who had been selling it on Saturday.
He also had copies of the recipe and at the end when most of the folks had wandered off and only the seriously curious were left, he gave away several bottles of 'plant' which is the ginger beer equivalent of sourdough starter.
Izzie asked if you could use crystalized ginger or grated fresh ginger. He assumed so but had only ever used ground ginger himself.
Realized that the silly Izzie did not have any suitable bottles. He uses the old beer bottles with stoppers which he gets off Ebay.
Wine bottles would just not cut the mustard we thinks. They would blow up within a day or two. Anyway did find one single water bottle in the broom cupboards with just such a stopper so went and did the deed. Had originally intended to make this stuff on Wednesday in case the bottle of plant was getting cranky at not getting its daily diet of sugar and ginger top ups.
Did not follow the recipe to the letter as that required 24 cups of water. So just completely guessed with the water, sugar and orange juice (had no lemon juice on hand but a tree full of rather sour and small oranges)
It's supposed to take a week or so before it is ready to drink. If it does not blow up the house before then.
Decided that we definitely do not want to make this stuff again unless there's some place to pour and store all 20 something cups of it. But once we do get it right, it will be a very cheap and tasty drink.
Did that around the time that some chunks of pumpkin and whole cloves of garlic were baking away.
The day light hours were devoted to setting up a proper vegie patch. Doing the ground work - literally. Also moved the ring of rocks around the rather sad and lame looking macadamia tree over to the mango nearby. The macca had been quite happy and healthy for most of its ten year existence until the summer from hell this year. Did not help that the silly Izzie pruned it in autumn only to discover that most of the nuts form on last year's new branches. It's only got a third of the leaves that it usually has this time of year.
If potash, kitty litter and earth potion do not work their magic, then maybe we will resort to running some sort of creeper up the tree to hide the too many bare branches.
But the biggest excitement of the week is signing up to a Living Smart course presented by the evil geniuses behind last week's strange green street festival.
It starts in three weeks time in the Shenton Park community centre. While preference will be given to locals of the area, Izzie's still in with a chance.
Tomorrow will be time to peek through all those seed packets and plant tomato, chili and pumpkin seeds. There's also all those wattles and banksia seedlings that still need to find a little spot in the ground
It's supposed to be raining on Monday so got to make the most of it.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 02:07 pm (UTC)I hope you get into the Living Smart workshop! I'm going to be planting this weekend too - can't wait to get my hands dirty :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 02:20 pm (UTC)Thanks for the tip about the plastic drink bottles. Got the same problem as you folks in collecting the plastic bottles. Not a fan of sugar water or high fructose corn syrup in any of its incarnations.
Would so love to see the South Australian container deposit scheme come back here. We had it in the 70s and it worked perfectly well and every other Aldi store in Germany takes back cans and bottles and prints out little vouchers so cannot understand what the fuss is about.
What are you planting in the vegie patch? No Dekalbian corn cobs we hope;)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-01 05:47 am (UTC)I ducked out this morning and planted some more spuds. I don't know if it will get too hot for them, but they'll go to waste otherwise. I've also got some cukes and tomato seedlings to go out, and then some cuttings which have rooted well - two geranium I got from my dad and some unidentified climber which hitched a ride in the orchid pot when we moved from the other house :)
I actually need to buy some corn :) but rest assured, no F1s allowed here! Probably won't get to do much more this afternoon, but tomorrow looks promising.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-01 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-03 01:40 pm (UTC)So what sort of bottles did your mother use? They sound a lot safer than the serpent's single specimen.
Figured there'll be no more ginger beer brewing in the Lair until we got this bottle business sorted out. After this little episode, given up any thought of using screw top wine bottles.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 07:14 am (UTC)