Garlic

Note to self: Must try to grow own garlic.
(Apparently I lost the last note.)

See here for ABC article on local vs imported garlic.

I try to buy locally grown garlic. It is amazing to compare the size and flavour with the imported stuff... the small cheap white garlic is so lacking in flavour and seems like a substandard younger relation.

Image here

Eggs and eggs

We have been buying Free Range Eggs for a while. I do occasionally wonder how honest the manufacturers are about the conditions of the hens as you hear stories about how "free" the concept of free range actually is.

A few years ago one of Chad's workmates gave us fresh eggs from his chickens and we were impressed with how bright yellow the yolks were compared to commercial caged eggs. It was from this point that we decided we wanted to buy eggs from happy chickens.

We usually buy our eggs from Scutti's in South Perth. Occasionally we stray. Chad recently bought eggs from Woolworths. He really only looked for free range and I did not think any more of it until I saw the packet. I remembered this story from the ABC's Landline about the egg industry in Australia and thought that I recognised the brand from this show. When I checked the box I realised that they were packed in NSW. It was very disappointing as we try to buy local (WA) fresh produce as much as possible.

I also checked the eggs that we had in the fridge. We had previously strayed and purchased our eggs from IGA. Thankfully they support local producers and our eggs were Pioneer Farms

When searching for the Landline story on the ABC website I also came across this recently filed story suggesting that the WA market would soon be swamped by eggs from Eastern States manufacturers due to an oversupply in their market.

We shall try to be more vigilant from now on and check labels!

A flood of potatoes

One of our neighbours owns a chicken farm... and they laid these potatoes!

No, just kidding. One of her chicken farm neighbours has given her lots of fresh potatoes. We are lucky that she has shared some with us, we have been given two bags of them and you can see the excess amount we have to cook with. For just the two of us we normally only buy six potatoes at a time so it will be a challenge to come up with potato recipes. So far we have made a potato bake and vegetable soup.

I am not a big potato fan so it will be a challenge!

Gelato!

I was terribly disappointed last year to hear that the iconic Western Australian ice cream Peters had been sold to Nestle. They shut down some of our favourite treats, including the Peters Trumpet (to make way for the inferior Nestle Peters Drumstick, soggy eh!) and CHOC WEDGE!! and shifted production of the Connoisseur range to the Eastern States. There went my local ice cream treat!


We do not eat ice cream that often, so it was nice to be able to buy a locally made, reasonable quality product.

I have since switched my take home allegience to il gelato. They have many different flavours of gelati and sorbets.

Gelato is a wonderful product, generally made from milk rather than cream (hence ice cream) and has a nice and smooth texture. If you ever go to Italy you have to experience real gelati. Yum!

It is $13.95 for a 1L tub of il gelato at my local corner store Scutti's. It is not a cheap treat! That is about twice what we were paying for a litre of Connoisseur (before it went Nestle). Our last tub was Ferrero flavoured, and now we are sampling Vanilla bean.

Images from here and here