Its funny the things that can trigger a massive life change isn't it?
Sometimes those triggers are obvious. A health scare, a change in family circumstance, a new job or a new baby.
For me, it was custard.
Yep, you read that right. Custard. It was about 6 years ago when I read a blog post from Rhonda at Down to Earth with a recipe for a simple egg custard. I can’t find the exact post now. But it contained vanilla, milk, sugar, cornflour and eggs in a pot simmered over the stove with a whisk for a few minutes. I was surprised. No double boiler, no instant custard powder, you didn't even need to separate the eggs. Apparently it was super easy, simple and quick. What?? I had been told my entire life that egg custard was a pain to make, a tedious thing. All the women I knew used custard from a carton, even though they were all very good home cooks. Upon this discovery I decided to give the recipe a try. It was then I made a life changing realization...
Custard is not the deep yellow I had come to know. It is creamy in colour.
Perhaps that shouldn't have come as such a shock, but it did.
Of course I knew on some level that some food contained colours, flavors and preservatives, but it had never dawned on me until that moment the extent at which they did.
This new knowledge triggered me to begin to question all the foods we were eating, I realized that many of the things I was using as a "short cut" were full of things I didn’t want to be serving my children. Slowly and surely I began to implement changes to the way I cooked, growing more confident in using fresh herbs and spices, learning how to add depth and flavor to my dishes by putting a little more time and effort into my cooking. It wasn't even a lot of extra time, I mean I was already in the kitchen. I had been conned into thinking these “short cuts” were saving me vast amounts of time, but the truth is they weren’t. At most it was a few minutes of prep time, if that.
I discovered after one week of cooking every thing from scratch that the “short cuts” (which weren’t really short cuts at all) were the thing that was making Angus, who was a baby so damn miserable. I was trying to do the right thing by feeding him what we were eating, together around the table. He was eating casseroles with fresh meat and veggies, spaghetti bol, and a good variety of dishes I would prepare for our family. On the surface we looked to be eating a healthy, well balanced diet. One week after cutting all colours/flavors/preservatives and cooking everything we ate from scratch he was sleeping through the night. He had even stopped his strange head banging he had started to do out of irritation. It was a revelation, not only were these additives unnecessary but they were in fact HURTING my child.
From there my desire to live more greenly and simply grew and branched out into other areas. Green cleaning, making laundry liquid, soap making, baking, gardening, fermenting, preserving and sewing are all areas I have explored and continue to implement in our families day to day life.
These changes slowly began to propel us in a different direction. My days started to take upon a new rhythm. I found meaning and importance in the tasks I had previously considered dull. I realized there is a huge amount of value in the work I was doing at home not only for our family but that it was better for the environment. I discovered a deep sense of joy and satisfaction in making my home a place people could drop into at any time. That there was always a cuppa to be had and something in the sweet tin to enjoy. Around the kitchen table we talked about the guts of life, the kids doing their thing in the background.
Bit by bit over the years we have added to these changes, Simplifying our lives, de-cluttering, and changing the way in which we consume.
Now we are about to embark on a brand new chapter of moving to our farm 18hrs away in NSW. We will be learning how to live totally off grid, starting out in yurts. To those on the outside it sounds like a huge transition, and in many ways it absolutely is. I would be lying if I didn't say I'm a combination of excited, apprehensive and anxious about how we are going to pull this whole move off. But it is also just another step on the journey to simplicity and living a greener, more sustainable life.
And it all started with a simple egg custard recipe.
My encouragement today is to remember that the little changes matter, even the seemingly insignificant ones. Each small change we make in our lives has the ability to propel us in a direction we might not be able to even begin to imagine.
Much love,
Emma
xx
Sometimes those triggers are obvious. A health scare, a change in family circumstance, a new job or a new baby.
For me, it was custard.
Yep, you read that right. Custard. It was about 6 years ago when I read a blog post from Rhonda at Down to Earth with a recipe for a simple egg custard. I can’t find the exact post now. But it contained vanilla, milk, sugar, cornflour and eggs in a pot simmered over the stove with a whisk for a few minutes. I was surprised. No double boiler, no instant custard powder, you didn't even need to separate the eggs. Apparently it was super easy, simple and quick. What?? I had been told my entire life that egg custard was a pain to make, a tedious thing. All the women I knew used custard from a carton, even though they were all very good home cooks. Upon this discovery I decided to give the recipe a try. It was then I made a life changing realization...
Custard is not the deep yellow I had come to know. It is creamy in colour.
Perhaps that shouldn't have come as such a shock, but it did.
Home made custard. 6 years later it's still a favorite.
Of course I knew on some level that some food contained colours, flavors and preservatives, but it had never dawned on me until that moment the extent at which they did.
This new knowledge triggered me to begin to question all the foods we were eating, I realized that many of the things I was using as a "short cut" were full of things I didn’t want to be serving my children. Slowly and surely I began to implement changes to the way I cooked, growing more confident in using fresh herbs and spices, learning how to add depth and flavor to my dishes by putting a little more time and effort into my cooking. It wasn't even a lot of extra time, I mean I was already in the kitchen. I had been conned into thinking these “short cuts” were saving me vast amounts of time, but the truth is they weren’t. At most it was a few minutes of prep time, if that.
I discovered after one week of cooking every thing from scratch that the “short cuts” (which weren’t really short cuts at all) were the thing that was making Angus, who was a baby so damn miserable. I was trying to do the right thing by feeding him what we were eating, together around the table. He was eating casseroles with fresh meat and veggies, spaghetti bol, and a good variety of dishes I would prepare for our family. On the surface we looked to be eating a healthy, well balanced diet. One week after cutting all colours/flavors/preservatives and cooking everything we ate from scratch he was sleeping through the night. He had even stopped his strange head banging he had started to do out of irritation. It was a revelation, not only were these additives unnecessary but they were in fact HURTING my child.
From there my desire to live more greenly and simply grew and branched out into other areas. Green cleaning, making laundry liquid, soap making, baking, gardening, fermenting, preserving and sewing are all areas I have explored and continue to implement in our families day to day life.
A few of my favorite simple living books, and my home journal.
These changes slowly began to propel us in a different direction. My days started to take upon a new rhythm. I found meaning and importance in the tasks I had previously considered dull. I realized there is a huge amount of value in the work I was doing at home not only for our family but that it was better for the environment. I discovered a deep sense of joy and satisfaction in making my home a place people could drop into at any time. That there was always a cuppa to be had and something in the sweet tin to enjoy. Around the kitchen table we talked about the guts of life, the kids doing their thing in the background.
Bit by bit over the years we have added to these changes, Simplifying our lives, de-cluttering, and changing the way in which we consume.
Now we are about to embark on a brand new chapter of moving to our farm 18hrs away in NSW. We will be learning how to live totally off grid, starting out in yurts. To those on the outside it sounds like a huge transition, and in many ways it absolutely is. I would be lying if I didn't say I'm a combination of excited, apprehensive and anxious about how we are going to pull this whole move off. But it is also just another step on the journey to simplicity and living a greener, more sustainable life.
And it all started with a simple egg custard recipe.
My encouragement today is to remember that the little changes matter, even the seemingly insignificant ones. Each small change we make in our lives has the ability to propel us in a direction we might not be able to even begin to imagine.
Much love,
Emma
xx
