Wafts of freshly baked bread is a scent that should come in a bottle – au de baguette! It is everything we want from cooking: comfort and temptation. Bread brought into the home immediately inspires us to reach for the butter or hummus or pickles or soup whatever, it’s the perfect base to accompany favourite foods.

Australian farmers produce some of the best wheat in the world which is milled into a dizzying selection of bread types. Flat to sourdough, sandwich to brioche, we are spoilt for choice.

This might be why we sometimes forget our bread in the rush to bring a new loaf home. In fact, bread is the most wasted food item in our households. The equivalent of millions and millions of loaves are thrown away in the form of loose crusts, end of loaves, and last pieces in the bag.

It appears our love of bread does not extend to its stale state! But that’s only because most of us are stumped for ideas. Be stumped no more, the stale ends might even become your best bits.

Take it from us, bread is far too precious to waste even if it’s gone rock hard. Clever cooks of old across cultures have used stale bread as an essential ingredient rather than a bin bound dilemma.

Greece leftover bread is made into a dip, in France pain perdu (what we call French Toast) is more treat than chore. Our most favourite and most practical use of stale bread is the ever-useful breadcrumb!

We save up all our odd ends of bread loaves and packets to keep us in breadcrumbs. They are the ultimate waste free revamp that can be used to beef out meatballs or make like Italian cooks and add them on top of pasta, and of course crumb everything from a chop to an eggplant for a meal at home that feels more like dinner out.

Storage

Bread will keep for 2–3 days in a beeswax wrap, reusable plastic bag or bread box. Avoid humidity, which tends to make bread go mouldy, and above all don’t put your bread in the fridge – it will dry it out and give it the texture of cardboard. If you don’t think you’ll get through a loaf within 3 days, you can slice and freeze bread for up to 3 months.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Check out our breadcrumb recipes straight from the Cornersmith kitchen and meet Brad Jones, a wheat farmer from Western Australia’s Central Wheatbelt. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Lamb, carrots, cheese, oranges and greens.

The post The stale bread situation appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Crumb everything in the house!

Making breadcrumbs is easy. Preheat the oven to 120°C. Blitz stale bread into rough breadcrumbs in a food processor, then spread on a baking tray and dry in the oven for 30–60 minutes, depending on how large the breadcrumbs are. Keep checking to ensure they don’t burn. Remove from the oven when they look and feel dry and crisp. Store in the freezer for up to 6 months.

To crumb things, set up three plates or shallow bowls. From left to right, put plain (all-purpose) flour in the first bowl, beaten egg in the second and the crumbs in the third.

Dip whatever you’re crumbing into each bowl, from left to right, turning it over gently with a fork to coat completely, then set aside on a plate until ready to fry. Popping them in the fridge for 30 minutes first can help stop things falling apart.

Breadcrumb mix

For extra-tasty crumbed meats and veg, mix 1 cup of your breadcrumbs with 2 tsp paprika, 1 tsp dried oregano and 1⁄2 tsp salt.

Crumbed fish cakes

Makes 8

This recipe comes from our book Use it All. They’ve been a family favourite in both our houses ever since our kids were little. We love them because everyone eats them and the recipe uses up leftover fish, leftover mash, whatever vegetables and herbs are hanging around in the fridge and homemade breadcrumbs from stale crusts.

• 400g (14 oz) cooked potatoes or sweet potatoes
• Splash of full cream (whole) milk
• Salt
• ¾ cup (75 g) thinly sliced crunchy vegetables
• Spring onions (scallions)
• Sweetcorn kernels
• Celery
• Fennel
• Small handful of finely chopped herbs eg dill, parsley, fennel fronds, celery leaves
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Zest of 1 lemon or lime
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• 300g (10½ oz) left-over flaked baked fish
• 1 egg
• 1 cup (100g) stale breadcrumbs
• 100 ml (3½ fl oz) good-quality vegetable oil such as sunflower or rice-bran oil

1. In a large bowl, mash the potatoes with the milk and a pinch of salt. If you’re using leftover mash just put it directly into the bowl. Add the thinly sliced vegetables, along with the herbs, garlic and lemon or lime zest. Season with salt and pepper and combine well with a fork, then stir through the flaked fish, being careful not to break it up too much, which can make the mixture gluey.
2. Divide the mixture into eight fish cakes. Whisk the egg in a shallow bowl and tip the breadcrumbs into another shallow bowl. Dip each fish cake in the egg and then coat in the breadcrumbs.
3. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium–low heat. Fry the fish cakes in batches for 3–4 minutes each side until crisp and golden. Drain on a paper towel and serve with a crunchy slaw, mayo and hot sauce.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Check out our stale bread ideas and bread storage tips straight from the Cornersmith kitchen and meet Brad Jones, a wheat farmer from Western Australia’s Central Wheatbelt. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Lamb, carrots, greens, oranges and cheese.

The post Budget blues? Breadcrumbs recipes to save the day appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Brad Jones journey to becoming a farmer in Western Australia’s Central Wheatbelt began growing up on a cotton farm in Queensland, running a business as an agricultural pilot that took him across Australia to finally making his mark when he and his wife Kate took on her family’s farm.

Just like technology has infiltrated our working and personal lives, it’s no different on Brad’s farm. From the outset it looks like any other cropping property, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find they’re using satellite imaging, robotics and a working on a project to sustainably produce aviation fuel.

Tell us about what you grow? We’re producing wheat, barley, canola, and export oaten hay and legumes, either a field pea or a lupin. We harvest just once a year under a cropping program that uses data, soil and plant testing, financial analysis and even satellite imagery to give the plants the best chance.

Tell us about the farm? My wife and I moved to the farm ‘Bungulla’ in 2007 after Kate’s dad retired. We have four kids and are the fourth generation on. We both work on the farm, but we also have a farm manager, three fulltime staff and numerous seasonal staff.

What was your journey into farming? When I left school I played rugby in the UK and Canada (so I’ve had to learn about AFL!) but I always wanted to fly. Being a cotton kid, we had planes on our farm every second day. I became an agricultural pilot and had a business around that, which was sold after we took over the farm and it expanded. We were employing lots of people, the HR side got really involved and we had four kids. I needed to learn and ended up doing a MBA. Before the farm, Kate was a journo for the ABC and now I say she’s the CEO of the farm business. In farming you have to be multi-skilled!

What’s changed on the farm in your time? We stopped running livestock and de-fenced the whole place. The forefathers were quite smart in farming and fencing by soil type, now we do it virtually. We have over 700 soil testing sites on farm and the varying soil types showed there were some limitations. We started retiring paddocks or parts of paddocks, linking remnant vegetation with revegetation. We also brought in a robotic sprayer that has brought our chemical use down to just 5% and it’s drastically reduced our diesel use. We’re now involved in a project to provide 3D imaging of the farm, using the data set to identify pests and diseases and how they will attack different soil types and crop stages.

What’s the best thing about what you do? I just love the land. I was born with the mutant farming gene and can’t shake it! We have a deep love of our land. I love getting out each morning on my mountain bike, just riding tracks out on the farm where I’m free and there’s no traffic!

People talk a lot about the importance of farming sustainably. Is this important to you? Being sustainable is what we care about the most.I don’t know any farmer who goes out and says, “let’s take what we can and leave it a desert.” The land is our lifeblood. Farmers think and act long term and generationally. Being sustainable is the way we think any way, I don’t like to put that title on us as we are always thinking long term, caring for the land we have a deep connection to.

Farmers invest a lot of time and money into planting a crop. What happens when Mother Nature throws a curveball? The next drought could start tomorrow so we have a fallow program to ensure there’s moisture in the soil. But, we do understand Mother Nature has the final say, so we do have to put the acorns away when we can.

Wheat is used for a number of foods, bread, pasta, noodles, pizza dough, cake. What’s in your lunchbox when you’re in the paddock? Depends who’s packed it! I eat lots of fruit, but sometimes sneak out biscuits from my youngest daughter’s lunchbox.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Check out our stale bread and bread storage tips straight from the Cornersmith kitchen and try out the breadcrumb recipes. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Lamb, carrots, leafy greens, oranges and cheese.

The post Meet a wheat farmer appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Orange you glad we are talking oranges? So are we! It’s citrus season and time to make the most of it.

Seasonal eating is one of the most impactful ways we can support Australian growers and the environment. When you choose the fruits and vegetables that are in season, you know that you are supporting the work of a local farmer.

Unseasonal produce means imported produce. Eating locally grown and seasonal helps farming communities and is one of the fundamental ways shoppers and home cooks can make positive environmental change.

Food miles and immunity booster

Imported produce racks up the carbon emissions and makes food supply chains longer and more complicated. Buying seasonally is very easy and the more affordable choice. Look for what is cheap, abundant and close to the front door of the grocer or piled high at the market – that’s what’s in season.

Citrus time has arrived and as the weather cools orange’s high vitamin C is just what we need to keep our immune systems strong. But there is more to oranges than a tall glass of juice.

Oranges are a clever two-in-one fruit, as their flesh is juicy and sweet and their peel is bitter, spicy and herbal, making them a very useful ingredient in the kitchen.

We use oranges from breakfast to dessert – as seasoning and as the hero of the table at this time of the year. Find us hunting for less familiar varieties at the farmers markets and stocking up on the old faithfuls from the supermarket. We even get crafty with the orange net and enjoy a little tipple with our own orange peel bitters we make every season. Lean into the season and make it an ode to the orange!

Storage

Oranges can be kept in a fruit bowl on the counter for a week or so, but if you’ve bought a huge bag, pop half the oranges in the crisper compartment of the fridge for a few weeks – they need air, though, so don’t wrap them tight.

Top tips for using it all

Orange zest as seasoning: Orange skin is high in volatile oils, making it a fragrant and flavoursome seasoning, its peppery and warm and matches perfectly with winter vegetables.

Along with oil, salt and pepper, zest and orange and squeeze the juice over vegetables such as fennel, pumpkin, beetroot or sweet potato before roasting. Add a pinch of chilli flakes or cayenne pepper to warm up taste buds.

Spent-orange-halves kitchen cleaner: Pop your discarded orange peel into a big old jar, cover with white vinegar and seal. Let it sit for a few weeks, or up to a few months. Strain, discard the peel and return the liquid to the jar. To make a quick kitchen cleaner, combine equal parts water, orange-infused vinegar and a little washing-up liquid in a spray bottle.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Find more orange recipes and meet Michael Arnold, an Australian farmer who grows citrus. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Bread, carrots, lamb, greens and cheese.

The post An Ode to Oranges appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Savoury orange salad

Serves 3-4 as a side.

• 3 oranges, remove skin and pith and slice thinly into rounds
• ¼ red onion, very thinly sliced
• Glug of olive oil
• Splash of good quality vinegar
• 1-2 tablespoons chopped salty olives
• Parsley, dill or tarragon leaves to scatter
• Plenty salt and pepper to taste

Arrange the orange slices on a flat platter, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and plenty of pepper. Scatter with red onion slices or quick pickled onions on top and add a little splash of vinegar. Sprinkle with finely chopped olives and plenty of chopped herbs. Serve this salad with a whole roast fish for a very impressive meal. Or with rich cheeses and good bread, a cous cous dish or grilled lamb.

Classic citrus marmalade

• 1kg citrus
• 3L water
• 1kg sugar
• 1 tablespoon spices or herbs of your choice – cloves, fresh ginger cut into matchsticks, cinnamon sticks, star anise, finely chopped fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme

Juice citrus. Flatten each half onto the bench with the palm of your hand and thinly slice the rind into matchsticks.

Put the rind, citrus juice, 3 litres of water and spices (if using), into a good sized wide mouthed saucepan or jam pot. Simmer over low heat until citrus skin is soft and translucent. About 1 – 1.5 hours.

Turn off the heat and slowly stir in the sugar until dissolved. Then turn the heat up to medium and bring to the boil. Boil steadily, stirring every now and then until marmalade has set.

While the marmalade is cooking, sterilise your jars. To sterilise your jars: give your jars and lids a soapy hot wash and a good rinse or put them through the dishwasher. Put jars into a low oven (110 degrees) for 15 minutes. Boil the lids for 5 minutes in a small saucepan, then let air dry.

When marmalade is ready, carefully take jars out of the oven using sterilized tongs and place on the bench. Let cool for a minute or two. Carefully spoon marmalade into jars, wipe the rim with a clean paper towel and seal immediately.

Leave to cool. Check lid for the correct seal and then store in a cool dark place for up to 12 months. To extend the shelf life to 2 years, heat process jars for 10 minutes.

Whole orange and chocolate cake

Makes 1 x 22 cm round cake.

Flourless citrus cake is a classic. Always moist, never too sweet, and a whole lot more interesting than a sponge cake. This one is made more lush with chocolate and whole citrus. We use oranges here but feel free to use other citrus fruit instead.

• 2 oranges
• 200g dark chocolate
• 100 g butter
• 8 eggs
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 3 cups almond meal
• 1 tsp baking powder

Place oranges in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes or until the oranges are completely soft. Drain and allow to cool completely. Break the cooled oranges up a bit, pull out as many seeds as you can, then blend to a pale paste using a hand-held blender or food processor.

Place a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, ensuring the bowl isn’t touching the water, then add chocolate and butter and melt together, stirring to combine. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a 22 cm (8 1⁄2 in) cake tin with butter. In a large bowl, beat 8 eggs with sugar until frothy. Fold in almond meal, powder, the blended oranges and the chocolate mixture. Stir gently to combine, then pour into the tin. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before serving.

Orange bitters for gin and tonics or booze free cocktails

Makes 2 cups.

There’s one place where bitter flavours are still much appreciated, and that’s in beverages. Aperitifs and digestives are made with bitter ingredients considered to be good for digestion. You might have tonic water in your fridge for gin and tonics, or to mix with juice or cordial. This recipe is a cheat’s version of tonic water that also utilises the bitterness of orange scraps.

Use the peel and pith of 4 oranges. Put these scraps in a saucepan with 3⁄4 cups caster sugar, 5 allspice berries, 2 star anise, 1 roughly chopped lemongrass stem (white and green bits), 1 tbsp juniper berries, 1⁄2 tsp salt, 1⁄4 tsp black peppercorns and 2-3 cups water.

Bring this all to the boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat to low and gently simmer, covered, for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave at room temperature to steep overnight. Strain into a clean and dry bottle or jar and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Start with 2 tbsp bitters to 30 ml gin and top with sparkling water for a classic gin and tonic, then add more bitters to taste.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Check out our Ode to the Orange tips straight from the Cornersmith kitchen and meet Michael Arnold, an Australian farmer who grows citrus. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Bread, carrots, lamb, greens and cheese.

The post The citrus recipes you never knew you needed appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Michael Arnold has a citrus orchard near Loxton in South Australia’s Riverland. His dad Barry, a former dairy farmer, bought a very run down orchard about 20 years ago. Luckily, he had three fit and energetic lads (Tim, Ryan and Michael) to help him rejuvenate it.

Since then, the sons have taken ownership, expanded and developed the orchard to where it is today. They now grow seven different varieties of oranges, five different mandarins and two lemon varieties!

What’s your role? My main role is people management. Organising and working with our valued staff, contract pickers and professional pruners to get what needs to be done on time.

I’m a bit of an ideas man (you might call me a dreamer! But that’s ok, I’ve been called worse!) Luckily Tim and Ryan, Dad and some of the key staff are good at logically talking through what might work and might not.

On an average year, how much do you grow? At the moment around 3,000 tonnes, but that should double in the next five years as our new plantings start to come into production.

Has anything changed on your farm in your time? The biggest innovation has been the 6-metre high netting structure that covers 70ha of our 100ha orchards. Like a big shade house! The nets cut down wind and help us grow more fruit that is blemish free and more profitable with less water. It’s also a big insurance policy against extreme weather events like hail. Hail can devastate a citrus orchard and can cause total crop loss.

What’s the best thing about what you do? It’s the connection with nature and dealing with what the seasons throw at you. Reading and feeling how our trees are responding, then trying to make our own tweaks to our trees and their environment to produce possibly the best citrus in the world.

I have always loved growing things! I also love the fact that what we grow is a superfood! Citrus is amazingly healthy.

What’s important to you when growing food? It’s important that what we grow is healthy and grown in a sustainable manner. Sustainable so we can repeatedly grow good healthy fruit and improve our soils/environment year on year. Healthy because I think there is a trend, where more people are becoming aware of eating a healthy diet that benefits their health and negates the need for medications down the track. Even choosing foods with higher nutritional and even nutraceutical properties.

For instance, we growing more Tarocco Blood Oranges as they contain anthocyanin (the antioxidant that gives berries the red/purple colour) and Cara Cara pink fleshed navels as they contain lycopene (the colour that makes tomatoes red) as well as all the usual health benefits all citrus contain, like vitamin C, fibre, folate, potassium, zinc, and various antioxidants and polyphenols. The list goes on…Google it!

What does it take to start an orchard? From research to production it takes six to seven years and a massive investment. How did it happen here? Once upon a time there was a citrus grower with a dream. A very good looking, sharp and charismatic young fellow! He convinced his citrus growing brothers to plant a lot of special oranges. He thought that they could grow the BEST CITRUS IN THE WORLD! The brothers agreed with the crazy plan and they went ahead and planted some rootstock seeds in a hothouse.

They tended and grew those rootstock seeds with great care for a whole year. They rejected 50% of the rootstock seedlings and planted the best quality ones in an outdoor nursery in the soil. In spring the nursery crew put a tiny bud in all 10,000 rootstock trees. Two years on from the crazy idea, the trees were ready to plant.

The brothers prepared the soil and fitted a water efficient, drip irrigation system. In spring they dug out all of those little, well cared for trees and transplanted them to their forever place in the dream orchard. The trees were cared for a further four years. Pruning, weeding, fertilising, spraying and eventually erecting a 6m high protective netting system to protect the orchard of dreams from hail, wind and weather extremities. Today the dream is starting to be realised and the trees are giving back all the love they have been shown.

Can you outline the lifecycle of an orange on your farm? All our trees are hand pruned to make sure only the best fruiting wood is left to grow quality fruit. The prunings are all mulched into the ground with a big tractor mulcher, so we keep building our soil carbon. This is fertigated through the drip system and foliar sprayed onto the leaves. Tests of soil, leaves and saps are taken to ensure the tree has the optimum nutrition levels. Nutrition is adjusted to what the tree needs at specific times eg flowering, cell division, cell expansion or for crop load and seasonal temperatures.

Every single orange is picked by hand and a majority of mandarins are hand snipped! They are placed gently in bins and sent off for washing, grading, packing and marketing to a fruit shop near you.

Tell us what your favourite way to eat an orange is? The old fashioned way, just peel or cut and eat fresh! Or…

• Peel two small oranges and put in a blender with a scoop of protein powder. I like strawberry powder, but the chocolate works fine too. It’s a great quick breakfast or post workout protein hit!
• Segmented out with yoghurt or ice cream.
• Blood orange icy poles for the kids are a winner in our house. Juice into molds, whack a stick in them and freeze.
• Blood orange Negronis are the bomb! Most citrus is pretty great in gin.
• Lemon curd tarts.
• Grate a bit of zest on everything for a zing!

How do we buy oranges grown by Australian farmers like you? All our fruit is packed and sold by the team at Venus Citrus. They pack a lot of fruit from various growers in our Riverland area. There’s also initiatives like the Kissed by Nature brand for good fruit with maybe a small superficial scratch to reduce food waste.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Find out how to eat seasonally to save money and try our orange recipes straight from the Cornersmith kitchen. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Bread, carrots, lamb, greens and cheese.

The post Meet an orange grower appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Left-over cooked meat in the fridge is a thing of beauty, meaning that dinner is already well on the way. When you have gone to the trouble of cooking a roast lamb for family and friends you really don’t want to waste a skerrick.

The last bits of meat, bones, fat, pan juices, the lot! There is so much flavour and nutrition in what makes up ‘the leftovers’ that they are better thought of as new ingredients in themselves.

Seriously, what we now think of as leftovers is only a recent phenomenon in the history of cooking. Before home refrigeration there was no such thing as leftovers.

Recipes once would detail instructions on salting, pickling, or curing the remains of a meal. These preserved ingredients would spark the inspiration for another meal. Portion sizes have also increased since the 1970s, meaning we are often cooking up the problem.

Let’s learn from these resourceful cooks of the past, especially as we face problems of food waste, to make the very most out of the efforts of farmers and home cooks!

All we need is a few tricks up our sleeves. The best news is that one of the many gifts of an ingredient such as lamb is that even a little goes a long way. After the satisfaction of the Sunday roast, the week ahead might be made a breeze if you make a stock from the bones, add a can of beans to a bit of meat and make tacos, or wow everyone again with our Clean Out The Fridge Pie recipe.

Storage

Left-over roast lamb (or beef) will last for about 4 days in the fridge. If it’s been slow-cooked and is sealed with a layer of fat on the surface, it will last even longer.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Check out our Clean Out The Fridge Pie recipe and meet Ellen Litchfield, a sheep producer from the outback. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Bread, carrots, cheese, oranges and greens.

The post Leftover lamb: A two-in-one meal deal appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Hot tip: if you wrap anything in pastry and turn it into a pie, you can pretty much get away with anything! Kids, don’t think they like leftovers? Serve them this pie and they won’t even know. Dinner made. No waste. And it was lamb appreciation night once again!

You can buy or make pastry for a family-sized family pie, turn the mix into pasties or curry puffs, or top it with mashed potato and turn it into a shepherd’s or cottage pie. This pie mix is a very simple clean-out-the-fridge style recipe that could also use other leftover cooked meats.

Clean Out The Fridge Pie

• 1-2 cups left over lamb, cut into small pieces
• 1 packet of thawed pastry, filo or puff
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 cup cooked or tinned chickpeas, this could also be left over rice or barley or lentils
• 400 g can tomato, or this could be a cup of stock or wine
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 garlic, minced
• 1 tbs ginger, grated
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp paprika
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line pie dish with pastry (reserve enough for the top) and pre bake for 15 min.
2. Make the filling: Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat, then sauté onion until soft and sweet. Add garlic cloves, ginger, ground cumin and paprika. Sauté for another minute or so, then add leftover lamb and 1 cup chickpeas or lentils or grain if you are using. Add tomatoes and  lots of salt and pepper (or other liquid) and cook this down until the mixture thickens. Simmer for 2–3 minutes until the flavours come together. Allow to cool before filling the pie.
3. Add pastry to make the pie top and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Check out our leftover lamb/meat tips straight from the Cornersmith kitchen and meet Ellen Litchfield, a sheep producer from outback Australia. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Bread, carrots, greens, oranges and cheese.

The post The ‘Clean Out The Fridge Pie’ lamb recipe appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Ellen Litchfield is a pastoralist on Wilpoorinna Station near Marree in northern South Australia where she lives with her husband Blake, son Winston and her parents Lyn and Gordon. Together, they grow organic beef and lamb.

How long has Wilpoorina been in your family? My grandparents moved to the area in the late 1950s to manage Mundowdna Station. They purchased the neighbouring station, Wilpoorinna, in 1972 and my parents moved here. My husband and I moved back to the property in 2018.

What’s your role? I help out with all facets of the family business as well as look after our son Winston. My favourite job on the property is moving the cattle or sheep with our stockhorses, we love using horses because it keeps the cattle and sheep very calm.

In an average year, how many livestock do you run? We run the livestock together with my brother and his wife on a neighbouring property and my uncle and aunty on Mundowdna, so the cattle and sheep have plenty of space to roam around. Because our rainfall fluctuates a lot it is very variable how many animals we keep but generally around 5,000 cattle and 10,000 sheep.

Has anything changed on your farm in your time? There has been so much change on our property just in my lifetime, we have changed from Merino sheep to wool shedding sheep. They are much more efficient and well adapted to arid conditions. We have also seen a lot of technology advances with remote telemetry meaning we can remotely monitor watering points instead of driving two hours to check them.

The introduction of the organic certification scheme was also a big change for us that has allowed us to differentiate ourselves from other producers. We are part of the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture so the certification scheme is a great reminder for us to make sure we are recording each year how we are meeting are environmental and social goals.

What’s the best thing about what you do? I love being outside and working with animals, before coming back to the property I worked as a veterinarian so I love that now I can spend all day looking after my own animals. It is also always changing from sheep work to book work to advocating for our industry, every day is different.

What’s important to you when growing food? We want to ensure we are delivering a nutritious product that is grown in harmony with nature. The unique thing about the stations out here is they are on pastoral leases so part of our job is also to look after the native biodiversity whilst creating a perfect protein source. That is what I love about ruminants, they can grow in harmony with nature and even help the native environment. It is the only protein source that can do that at this scale.

Can you outline the lifecycle of a sheep while it’s on farm? Our lambs are born out in the paddocks with their mothers, then we go around mustering into the watering points so they don’t have too far to walk. They are given an eartag and the boys are castrated to make sure there isn’t too much fighting. And then the next time they come into the yards is to be processed so they live a very natural life out in very large paddocks – over 100,000 acres each paddock (that’s more than half of Singapore!).

How long do the sheep stay on your property? Lamb means the animal is 12 months or younger but a surprising fact is that Mutton is actually very delicious and what we eat on the property! It is hard to find at a supermarket because most people like lamb but if you have a good butcher try to get some Australian mutton, it has a little bit more flavour and much, much more economical.

Thinking about nutrition and “You are what you eat ate”, what do your sheep eat? All our sheep and cattle graze native pastures only, so they have a wide array of nutrients and we do not need to supplement them with anything. That is one of the really unique things about the rangelands across Australia is you can get a really nutritious protein source grown from native pastures. It also means we are passionate about looking after our native lands because without them we couldn’t produce any food.

How do we buy lamb grown by Australian producers like you? Look for organic Australian lamb and it might be some of ours!

My mother’s mutton minestrone

By Ellen Litchfield

• 1.5kg mutton on the bone (neck chops are good for this or some other sinewy cut of meat, cut into chunks)
• 6 cups cold water
• 1 brown onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 4 large ripe tomatoes
• 1tsp chilli paste
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 2 potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 cup macaroni
• 2 cups baby spinach
• Salt and pepper to taste Parmesan to serve

1. Place mutton pieces into cold water and bring slowly to the boil. Add onion, carrots, celery, tomatoes, chilli and tomato paste.
2. Simmer for at least 1 hour, if you can do longer you will make better use of the nutrients coming out of the bones.
3. Meat should peel off the bones when done. Season to taste. Then add potatoes and macaroni, cook for a further 30 minutes.
4. Just before you serve, plunge the spinach in. Serve with a sprinkling of parmesan.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Find out how to make your lamb go further by learning how to store it and try the clean-out-the-fridge recipe straight from the Cornersmith kitchen. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Bread, carrots, leafy greens, oranges and cheese.

The post Meet a sheep producer appeared first on AustralianFarmers.

Exxxxcuuuuse us, but did someone call carrots humble? Ahem, they are anything but! Carrots are as glamorous and mysterious as say…potatoes or onions. Yes, those vegetables are also not so humble when you learn to give them their due.

Potatoes once revolutionised Europe when they arrived from the New World – ancient Egyptians worshiped the bulbous beauty of the onion and carrots tops were the height of fashion in 17^th century England. Just because a vegetable is ubiquitous and relatively affordable does not mean it’s unremarkable.

And as the cost of living is squeezing so many of us, it is well and truly time to relook at the basics and gain an appreciation for their unsung beauty, their dependability, their versatility and give them the glam up they deserve.

Enter, the glamourous carrot. A kilo of carrots is a gift that keeps on giving. From soup to cake this is a vegetable for any occasion. Light the candles, bring out the good dinnerware, pour yourself a crisp glass of carrot juice and prepare for a carrot degustation fit for a 24 karat review.

Feeling inspired and enlightened?! Check out the carrot recipes straight from the Cornersmith kitchen and meet Mick Rieck, an Australian farmer who grows carrots. You can also check out our tips and tricks for saving money and doing your bit to reduce food waste with the other foods in this series: Bread, greens, lamb, oranges and cheese.

The post The glamorous carrot appeared first on AustralianFarmers.