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Country Life Experiment

Simple Country Living

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Food Hacks

How To Roll Pastry

I’m back with another kitchen hack. This time I wanted to share my little trick for rolling pastry or biscuit dough without getting flour all over kitchen. Before I had worked out this hack, I used to avoid making pastry because of the mess. Flour would always manage to be spread all over the kitchen…

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How To Freeze Herbs

Our basil was super late growing this year. Earwigs ate the first lot of plants, and the second lot took a while to get going. We even ended up buying several batches of basil to cook with because we didn’t have any in the garden. At long last however, the basil plants are full of…

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How To Line A Round Cake Tin

Over the many years I’ve been teaching kids about food, I have learnt quite a few tricks and short cuts. When you have 24 students and only an hour to cook with them, these tricks are often the difference between getting the class finished on time, and running into lunch. The honest truth, is that…

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What To Do With Extra Fruit And Vegetables

Anyone who has ever grown their own food knows this problem: One day you have hardly any fruit or vegetables, and the next day all the plants are ready to harvest and you have more than you can possibly eat. On the farm this is a constant issue for us. The plum trees are suddenly…

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Fresh Fruit “Ice Cream”

I have been meaning to share the recipe for this little treat we have been making over the summer holidays. While school is now back, the weather is still hot, so we are still enjoying our treat. It came about when Hannah saw it on a five minute segment on the SBS food channel, and asked…

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How To Dry Chillies

Last summer, Country Boy’s chilli plants were prolific. We had chillies everywhere, and while I quite like a little bit of spice in my food, there was no way we could possibly eat them all. To use up the left over chillies I had a go at drying them. It worked beautifully, and was really…

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5 Pieces Of Kitchen Equipment I Cannot Do Without

I’m not a big user of kitchen gadgets. I don’t have a rice cooker, or a juicer, or an icecream maker, or anything like that really. My mother lent me her slow cooker earlier this year, because I thought I might use it. It wasn’t useful enough for me to justify the space it took…

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How I Make My Own Mozzarella

One of the things I love to do is make as much of our food as possible. We make our own sauces, jams, pickles, and preserves. We grow our own vegetables and fruit and freeze the left overs for later. We slaughter our own meat and have even made our own sausages (and have plans…

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Hi, I’m Jo

I'm a city girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
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Summer holidays seem a million years ago already. Summer holidays seem a million years ago already. It’s all systems go here as we try to get our rhythm going. School and work are busy, community events are coming back, and our harvest is in full swing. It’s a lot to manage. No matter how busy we are, I’ve been prioritising my evening walk. Sometimes C or the kids come with me and we talk and make plans, and sometimes I go alone, with a podcast for company. Either way, the golden hour is always breathtakingly beautiful and I snap way too many pics. None of them ever fully capture the magic, but I can’t help myself. I mean look!!! 😍
The kids have been wanting to build a raft for the The kids have been wanting to build a raft for the dam for a while. They collected some old barrels and pallets, and got some rope to lash it all together. This morning they put it together and floated it out into the middle of the dam. Plenty of magical days to be had playing on the dam ahead of us!
The orchard doesn’t stop. We’re getting basket The orchard doesn’t stop. We’re getting baskets and baskets of fruit each day and I’m running out of things to do with it all. I’ve taken quite a few to work to give away. I’ve made jams and pastes and chutney. I’ve cooked and frozen apricots and nectarines for fruit crumble this winter and dehydrated plums and apples for lunch boxes. The pantry and freezer are filling up.
I woke up yesterday and it was raining - a perfect I woke up yesterday and it was raining - a perfect time to deep clean. I dusted, de-cobwebbed, sorted, wiped, scrubbed, vacuumed and washed. Of course it will stay this way for 34 seconds, but it’s nice while it lasts.
We’re slowly (verrry slowly) getting back into t We’re slowly (verrry slowly) getting back into the swing of school and work. I think C might secretly be glad we’re leaving him each day so he can get through the many jobs that he always has at this time of year. He’s fencing and slashing thistles and drenching the lambs and a thousand other things that need to be done to keep the farm ticking over. In the evenings he often joins me on my walk and we talk about our plans for the garden and farm. We’ve had a lot of rain over the past few days and the air is so clear and the evening light is amazing. I keep stopping to take photos.
Late summer harvest is coming in. I’ve got tomat Late summer harvest is coming in. I’ve got tomatoes, stone fruit, corn, and even early apples sitting on my bench needing to be dealt with. I’ve got a big pot of tomato passata on the stove (I need to make at least 50 jars this year) and I went through our jams and pickles and made a list of what I need to make this year. Next week I will get out the dehydrator and start drying fruit for snacks and muesli. It’s all systems go!

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Hi, I’m Jo

City girl turned farmer's wife, school teacher, ideas woman, and mum to three country kids. Country Life Experiment is all about simple country living, growing and making our own food, and life on our family farm in rural Australia. Join me as I give country living a try. Read more...
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