![]() In my family, I’m the flower grower and Jim is the veggie gardener. His enjoyment of all things veg has put him on the committee of the DVGC (Dunedin Vegetable Growers Club). Being a good supportive wifie, I go along to the meetings with him, and occasionally …. when they are really really desperate for a speaker, I do a little cooking demonstration or some other random presentation. The club is fairly well attended, with over 80 members. So far, I’ve done a presentation on homemade cleaning products, homemade castile soap, preserving food and making herbal teas. I think there are a few other ones in there but I choose to block them forever from my memory. So, a funny thing happens when you become a member of a group or a club and you do these kind of presentations. People actually believe that you are an expert!! How gullible is that? Then they talk to other people, who talk to people and so on. Hence, a phone call from our very own Mitre 10’s kitchen department. So, pretending to be Martha Stewart over the last month for two Saturdays I set up a kitchen with a small team of orange shirted helpers and demonstrated my amazing skills of reading and following recipes. Cooking and preserving in particular in the middle of a busy store, was certainly challenging. I completely underestimated the amount of time it would take to set up and look like I knew what I was doing. Together, with my team of little orange helpers, we muddled along just nicely. The first demo was jam making and chutneys. Before long the delicious smell of caramelized red onion chutney and home-made jam filled the store. A couple of hundred pikelets with jam and cream, crackers and chutney were happily consumed by those who wanted to check out the process and ask questions. Believe it or not, there seems to be a real revival on making home preserves at the moment, and I was amazed at the number of folk who were just learning for the first time how to go about this. ![]() A couple of weeks later, I did my last demo and this time it was bottled beetroot and bottled pears. Seriously, there is no comparison to the home grown delicious bottled beetroot and the insipid pale canned rubbish we buy at our local supermarket. At one stage I think I had about 20 people gathered around watching me ladle pears into hot jars whilst sampling beetroot. In this crazy, mad world, it’s nice to go back to the simple things in life. Growing good food, enjoying that same food around the family table and sharing a bit of knowledge with others who wish to do the same. Even though (with my other commitments) it made this last month a bit on the insanely busy side for me, I really enjoyed the change of environment, the lovely folk who got involved and making some new friends in the foodie world. I had fun. I know you are all probably wondering when the tv series will begin … but in the meantime, here’s my “award winning”, kidding, recipe for Caramelised Red Onion Chutney. Caramelised Red Onion ChutneyOnion chutney requires only a few ingredients - onions of course (any will do, but red onions give the nicest colour and sweet taste), a vinegar - sherry, red wine, or balsamic are all ideal, and brown sugar, together with some bay leaves and peppercorns or chilli for flavour.
Ingredients 6 large onions– finely chopped 3 cups vinegar (2 cups balsamic & 1 cup white vinegar is good) Olive oil (approx 1 tbsp) 3 cups brown sugar 2 bay leaves 15-20 crushed black peppercorns Method In a good sized saucepan heat the olive oil and add the onions. Cook until softened. Add brown sugar, vinegar, bay leaves and peppercorns. Bring the mixture to the boil and then simmer gently for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until the onions have gone translucent and all the liquid has evaporated. Pour the hot mixture straight into hot sterilised jars, seal, and store somewhere cool and dark or in the fridge. The chutney should keep for at least 6 months. To ensure the chutney can keep even longer (1 year plus), put the sealed jars in boiling water and simmer for 15 minutes. Chutney should be left for 4-6 weeks to mature allowing all of the wonderful flavours to develop and mix. Chutney Recipe Variations Additional ingredients can be added to this recipe according to your personal taste. A couple of garlic, cumin, thyme, redcurrant jelly, cloves, sultanas, mustard, apple, and tomato puree all work well. Add a tablespoon of cornflour to thicken up the chutney if desired. Recipe has been modified, but original idea came from: http://www.self-sufficient.co.uk/Make-Caramelised-Onion-Chutney.htm ~Robyn Bazika
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Linda gave me some interesting articles last year all about the lifelong impact of self-control. One such study was a 40-year study of 1000 children which revealed that childhood self-control strongly predicts adult success (Moffitt, Poulton, & Caspi, 2013). The results of the study showed that it did not matter what your level of intelligence was, or your socio economic status. Self-Control is a predictor of early mortality, psychiatric disorders, and unhealthy behaviours which could include drunk driving, unsafe sex, smoking, overeating and general non compliance in a range of contexts. ![]() So what is self-control? Since I didn’t understand the highly complicated definition in the article I had to look it up. Self-control (noun) The ability to control oneself, in particular one's emotions and desires, especially in difficult situations. "Lucy struggled for self-control." I had a bit of a laugh when I saw the example above of “Lucy silently struggled for self-control”. How many Lucys do we have in our classrooms? Many of our girls don’t “silently” struggle for self-control either, they let it all out! We all have issues with self-control one way or another as this is just how humans are. When we have difficult students we have our own sanity preserving techniques to help them to manage their behaviour. Some approaches work well, and some we’d rather not remember. Sustaining this type of management in a volatile environment can be very difficult. Taking ownership of behaviours which exhibit a lack of self-control though is what we would hope our students will eventually do - PB4L. But how do we empower our young women to kick-start their self control? Do they have the tools to do this, what are they? Can self-control be taught or is this something that develops with maturity? (I figure I must be pretty slow to mature!) Added to these questions is the concept of willpower. I always thought it was really the same as self-control but some recent readings have made me think differently. Willpower (noun) control exerted to do something or restrain impulses. "most of our bad habits are due to laziness or lack of willpower." ![]() An excellent book, entitled ‘Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength’ (Baumeister & Tierney, 2012) talks at length about the willpower gap and that in fact, willpower is a depletable resource. ‘Until 1998, scientists didn’t know that willpower was measurable’ (Baumeister et al, 2012). We evidently have about 15 minutes of willpower at any given time. Just imagine the everyday decisions we make which can deplete this willpower - eg. shall I delete this email, reply or save it for later? Should I have the piece of fruit or custard square? You know, you decide to get fit, think about it, dream about the end result, make an amazing weekly plan of exercise and go for it. Day one you are totally awesome, and feel a bit sore but a great sense of achievement. Then by day five you are over the initial enthusiasm and just can’t seem to get out of bed early enough, making the excuse that you’ll work extra hard tomorrow. We all know how the story ends - within a few weeks we have decided that after our birthday we’ll start again, or after the wedding …. etc. By the way, how many of you have stuck to your 2017 new year resolutions? Hmmm? Where is your willpower? What was the pivotal moment where you decided to not pursue your dreams and goals? If you do remember the moment - you’ll probably realise that your willpower was at a pretty low peak. The good news is folks, that although willpower is a depletable resource, you can restore it. This could be through a few minutes of meditation, gardening (for me), a walk, prayer, creative activities, reading something motivational or simply reminding yourself of your goals and why you have them. Putting this all into the educational context. If, as research indicates, our students at any given time have 15 minutes of self-regulatory willpower, the ability to restrain certain behaviours or impulses. With all the choices students make even before they get to school, how do we help them to restore their willpower and ultimately their self-control resources? No student comes to school to fail, and even though I have taught some extremely challenging students, I don’t believe that a single one of them really wanted to behave so badly that the consequences were exclusion or stand-down. Wouldn’t it be great to have the keys to tap into the willpower gap for those students? How awesome to develop strategies with these students so that they know how to restore depleted willpower in order to develop the self-control necessary for success in all aspects of learning, life and future goals? Perhaps somewhere in this rambling is a good research topic? Have a great break everyone - you’ll find me in the garden! ~Robyn Bazika References Baumeister, R., & Tierney, J. (2012). Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Penguin USA. Moffitt, T., Poulton, R., & Caspi, A. (2013). Lifelong Impact of Early Self-Control. American Scientist, 100(5), 352. doi:10.1511/2013.104.1 |
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