Wednesday, January 4, 2012

new years' champagne breakfast with gluten-free buckwheat pancakes by orgran!

We had a pretty quiet New Years Eve at home with a bottle of Moet I received as a Christmas gift.  We didn't quite make it to midnight so we decided to finish off the Moet with breakfast.  A champagne breakfast with Gluten Free Buckwheat Pancakes by Orgran


We've used this pancake mix once before and probably would never have tried it if it weren't for Coles (our supermarket chain here) having a stall at the Good Food & Wine Show in Brisbane.  You could walk the faux supermarket isle they had set up and take whatever you liked to try from their gluten free and health section!  I couldn't believe it, someone giving away full sized products as much as you'd like to take home.  I was modest and only took a few things such as the pancake mix.  Glad we tried this because it's really good!


Orgran Buckwheat Pancake Mix

INGREDIENTS:

Stonemilled Buckwheat Flour (49.7%), Rice Flour, Maize starch, Tapioca, Raising agents: Monocalcium phosphate, Bicarbonate of soda.       



I'm really impressed with the Orgran range, from my first purchase of their Rice Bread Crumbs as an alternative to wheat bread crumbs and their price point it really is a great little range.  Looking at their website you'll see the range is quite huge: www.orgran.com


The pancake mix asks for eggs which we did use the first time we made these pancakes.  But seeing as we're experimenting with the vegan idea we used the Orgran No Egg mix.  Worked great! But I really wonder if this stuff can make a meringue like on the box...

 


Orgran No Egg

INGREDIENTS:

Potato starch, Tapioca flour, Calcium carbonate, Citric acid, vegetable gum (stabiliser): Methylcellulose

Here is the result.  I whipped up some berry compote and drizzled with maple syrup.  With the champagne and orange juice it was delicious!!  A yummy start to a New Year!! 

champagne breakfast complete


Saturday, December 31, 2011

who is olive?

This is Olive, our Russell Terrier who we adopted from the Sippy Creek Animal Rescue on October 10th, 2011. 


olive


Olive is our first dog, she's 2 and is super cute (see above).  She loves her ball, sits for her dinner, burps after eating or drinking (without fail), and has the scruffiest little face you ever saw.  Olive loves watching us do anything and everything around the house - we hope you enjoy watching us too. 

Friday, December 30, 2011

starting our first no-dig veggie patch garden

We started a veggie patch early this spring - we bought a raised garden bed from our local hardware store (around $200 for this size) and set it up on top of the pebbled area of our patio.  We're hoping the pebbled area doesn't get too dirty as we're renting.

We used the layering method of paper, mulch, lucerine and various manures (chicken, cow and mushroom compost). Topped off with soil and another layer of sugar cane mulch.
started with a newspaper layer, then lucerine, and so on

spraying between layers


voila, finished!


 Soon after our garden looked much like this! Basil, marigolds (to keep the bugs at bay), tomatoes and a few other herbs...

our first tomatoes

a couple of weeks later...