Jon and I have just arrived back from a beautiful family Christmas in Perth, where good cooking, especially of superb fresh Western Australian seafood, is all the go.  Like most Australians we’re in love with Thai flavours,  so this month I’m concentrating on lemongrass – its use as an essential oil, as well as growing it, and I’ll be including an incredibly easy and quick sauce for fish which you can whip up in no time when you’re barbecueing some fresh fish throughout the summer.

So here goes – four good uses for lemongrass:

1.   Grow it.  Lemongrass grows naturally in India and Sri Lanka, but is quite at home in Australia.  Ours flourishes here in Foster, but I suspect it may not like frost.  It’s in a raised bed, so is well drained, and we  cut it back to about 10cm tall each year, but otherwise it thrives on neglect.  Just pull a chunk off the plant and chop the white part for cooking.    You can easily share with a friend by making sure the chunk you pull of the parent plant has a few roots on it.  It’s fantastic to have such an easy-to-grow herb freshly available at your doorstep.  It looks good in the garden and saves you money too!

2.  Use it medicinally. Lemongrass essential oil has a light and pleasant perfume.  My aromatherapy texts tell me it’s known as “the connective tissue oil”, and especially good to repair soft tissue damage, so I’ve been using a couple of drops in some emu oil to help repair the tendons in some fingers I dislocated.  The emu oil is well known for its anti-inflammatory properties.  My fingers are improving, and the lemongrass oil smells clean and fresh.

3.  Drink it. Lemongrass tea is very refreshing.  Just chop some leaves  of your lemongrass plant and leave to infuse for three to five minutes.  Add sugar if you like.  It’s also good chilled and served with ice.

4.  Eat it.
Fast and easy Thai-style sauce for fish

Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic chopped
a good sized chunk of ginger
minced chilli (to taste)
mild vegetable oil
1 stick of fresh lemongrass, outer leaves removed, white part finely chopped
a handful of fresh coriander, mint, basil, vietnamese mint  (any or all of these)
1 dessertspoon brown sugar or palm sugar or golden syrup
the juice of a lemon or lime
extra oil

Method:
Very gently fry the lemongrass, garlic, ginger, chilli, and fresh herbs until they are soft but not brown.
Add brown sugar and lemon juice and cook gently for a couple of minutes more.  Taste to adjust flavour.
Add oil until required consistently is reached.
Pour a little over barbecued fish fillets and pass extra in a jug.

This month’s competition is for two bars of our Lemongrass Soap.
Just add a comment or new idea of your own about lovely lemongrass to be in the draw.

The winner will be announced at the end of January.

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Next we decided to try a chemical-free way to clean the loo.

There’s nothing new about this method,  but it’s so cheap and easy I wonder why I ever bought expensive and artificial smelling toilet cleaners.

First buy some sodium bicarbonate (carb soda).  Pool supply shops sell it in bulk.

Then buy the cheapest vinegar you can find.

Now, to the toilet bowl, add half a cup of sodium bicarbonate and half a cup of vinegar.  Leave it to do its magic for an hour or so, or even overnight.  Then scrub your toilet bowl.

Voila!  Clean toilet bowl.  Easy, isn’t it? … and no nasty chemicals.

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No problems – I’m very happy to do that.

Please let me know if it suits you better to buy the whole log (the equivalent of 26 bars of soap), but do remember that the soap takes a month to cure, so you need to plan ahead!

This is what the soaps look like before they’re cut.  Definitely not factory made!

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Welcome to our new website, and my blog!

In it I’ll be giving  you hints and recipes,  ideas, and thoughts, about ways you can dispense with lots of the artificial chemicals in your life, and live closer to the way nature intended,  especially when it comes to soaps, body products and household cleaners.

I started making soaps about three years ago when I began to worry about the noxious chemical things most factory made cosmetics, soaps and household cleaners contain, especially ‘fragrances’.

After I made the first batch of all-natural soap for my family we all fell so in love with the product that we were hooked, and could never go back to ‘factory’ soap again.

I love the gorgeous ingredients I get to handle each time I make a batch – local Victorian olive oil, fresh and fragrant Gippsland lavender, petals and infusions from my own garden,and no animal ingredients except beeswax and goats milk.

The soaps are cured for four weeks to make them just right for your skin, and then my family and I cut, stamp and wrap them by hand.

So… I’m lucky.  I can play and experiment with parsley, pumpkin, carrot, coriander, shea butter, cocoa butter and heaps of other things which look great, smell even better and are good for you as well.

I make fresh products from beautiful ingredients and my family and I get to test every new product. At the moment I’m working on gorgeous moisturising bath bombs, so I HAVE to have a long luxurious, perfumed soak every night.

Well, someone’s got to do it!

Our soap shop is open most days during  the summer, and we’d love you to call in and say hello if you’re in the area. We’re just 3 kms from Foster on the Fish Creek Road.  Look out for our pink flag.

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