Village Dreaming in Blampied, Victoria, Australia | Education

Village Dreaming

Locality: Blampied, Victoria, Australia

Address: 100 Allisons Rd Blampied 3364 Blampied, VIC, Australia

Website: http://villagedreaming.com.au

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25.01.2022 Subscribe to the NEW issue of Pip Magazine and you could WIN a FormBoss three-tiered planter*, PLUS receive a FREE packet of heirloom vegetable seeds with every... print subscription! In Issue 17, we look at how to grow food at home (no matter how small your space), seed saving, how local food systems are thriving in times of crisis, what is a planet-friendly diet and a guide to indoor plants. We also explore cultural burning, rehydrating landscapes, a fire-resistant earthship build in Kinglake, an in-depth look at the healing powers of apple cider vinegar, plus much more! Subscribe today!

24.01.2022 Make pasta if you canif your heart will allowif anxiety levels are high or low or somewhere in between. Make pasta if the choice is there and you feel ok and ...the worries now with you are not too high. Or make it because you are indeed very anxious and wondering if things will be ok or will they get worse? You are not sure of all these things. Will the banks be kind, will they try and help or will they let us sink? Will those with extraordinary wealth use their power to empower or will they leach it all out? If your heart is strong enough and you are floating still, maybe making pasta will act as a meditative pill. By the way we are ok, I was just reflecting on the current situation.... I printed an article in PIP magazine Issue 16 with a detailed description of how to make pasta. Here are some photos from that article. All the best to you all dear friends during this time. I have included some very basic information on how to make pasta on my site villagedreaming.com.au in the most recent post.

24.01.2022 Upcoming classes! At Orto Farm, Blampied, Victoria. Sourdough Panettone and Pasta making class. Traditional soap making using lard.... Tour: Wetland, Permaculture and Building with Straw. For details please visit https://villagedreaming.com.au/workshops/ Thank you and Arrivederci!

23.01.2022 Thank you heaps LOST magazine for your generous work! An article about what I am up to at our home ORTO Farm in Blampied. https://www.lostmagazine.com.au/all-features

21.01.2022 I want to move away from using baking paper, which is a disposable item. I have traditionally used it to line baking trays when making quince paste. But I have ...now found a better solution and one that works! And of course it works! Because before baking paper was created homemakers all over the world had other solutions. So here it is, tea towels! Or fabric of any kind, ideally old and or not dyed, or if dyed one that you have used a great deal so that the dye is no longer potent. The tea towel in this picture has been used for over a year and hence was perfect for the job. Clean and ready for lining baking trays. I then found more old fabric which after being washed was cut up for future lining. I realised I could do this after seeing a post about a Greek nonna who had made soap and had lined her trays with tea towels. And I thought, ah ha! yes of course. That's it. A note that the quince paste is cooked in a large saucepan then transferred to a cloth lined tray to 'dry' further in the oven at 50C. When I bake cakes I almost always use the flour and oil method. You grease the tin with oil or butter, then coat the oiled tin with a thin layer of flour and the cake doesn’t stick. Happiness. Wasting makes me feel like I am wasting myself, because waste is an opportunity lost. Arrivederci! https://villagedreaming.com.au/

19.01.2022 Fermenting is deliciously simple. Join me if you can for a fermenting class at ORTO Farm Blampied, Central Victoria, on Sunday 26th of April from 2-5pm. I wil...l teach you to make: sourdough levain vegetable ferments honey ferments garlic ferment water kefir drinks It will be a hands on class. Each ferment is increadibly simple, and uses the same principle. With just a few tips to ensure success. To book and purchase tickets please visit: https://villagedreaming.com.au//fermenting-is-deliciously/

18.01.2022 RAG ruG cLaSs with Ilka White Sunday May 10th, 10am-4pm, at ORTO FARM Blampied, Victoria. A great way to recycle old clothes and fabric learn to make beauti...ful rag rugs, discover an inspiring range of colour and design possibilities! This off- loom spiral braiding technique weaves in as it goes with no need to stitch up afterwards. Ideal for rag rugs, the method also lends itself to a wide variety of materials in 2 or 3 dimensions. By altering the tone, texture and contrast of different materials, you can create rugs, basketry and more. Bring your own material to recycle and find out what riches can come from rags. Ilka White’s practice spans projects in textiles, drawing, sculpture and installation, art-in-community and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Direct engagement with the natural world and an interest in world textile traditions inform her making and teaching practice. Ilka taught Contemporary Art and Design, Weaving and Textile History at RMIT for 12 years and now teaches throughout the country. She exhibits internationally and her work has appeared in a host of publications and public collections. Ilka’s popular workshops reflect the principles of sustainability alongside a love of the handmade and make contemporary use of traditional methods. She is a strong believer in the ability of beauty and creativity to lift the spirit! ilkawhite.com.au We will have a shared lunch, with home made flat breads and baked vegetables. Please bring a package free vegetarian filling to share. Afternoon tea will be provided with gluten free options. A small introductory tour of ORTO farm will also be facilitated throughout the day. Parking available on site. Bookings please visit https://www.ilkawhite.com.au/allc/braided-rag-rugs-blampied Arrivederci! Cari amici.

17.01.2022 I was going to run a panettone making class this November and just in case it can go ahead I did a test run. Panettone is a winter treat, an enriched bread ful...l of eggs, many eggs (10), milk, lots of butter, cointreau, marsala, a dash of vanilla seeds and almond oil, orange peel and sultanas and of course a bit of sweetness too. To be enjoyed only once a year when the winters are dark, windy and cold. See more

17.01.2022 In March it’s hard not to be gluttonous. It’s hard for me to walk away from a quince tree with only a small amount of quinces. Instead I have this hungry energy... as though the tree I have found is the only tree in the world and these are the only quinces I will ever find, ever. And so I always harvest more and too much and I have to learn, I really do need to learn, not to be so hungry. How to dry quinces and make quince cordial on my blog. https://villagedreaming.com.au//how-to-dry-quinces-and-ma/

17.01.2022 Join me in a sourdough/naturally leavened Panettone and pasta making class, on Sunday 6th December at Orto Farm in Blampied. 9am to 6pm. This class is limited... to 5 people and includes a pasta making session too. Be ready to learn a great deal. And while it is best suited to people who have experience baking with naturally fermented flours, if you are happy to dive in deep then I am happy to teach you. This is an all-day class and we will be moving from panettone making to pasta making and back to panettone making. And a shared lunch. We will make one panettone and I will take you through every step. I will also have a readymade panettone for you to try and for us to enjoy with afternoon tea. For all details please visit and purchase tickets via my website https://villagedreaming.com.au/workshops/

17.01.2022 Water Kefir with strawberries and fizz. These photos were taken about 5 weeks ago of our volunteer Jasmine from SA.

15.01.2022 Our 'Cheese making for Lovers of Cheese' class with Rosie is full. I look forward to eating Rosie's cheese very much. Very, very much. Arrivederci cari amici.

15.01.2022 A very intimate pasta making birthday for my 9 year old Artemisia, we made, we cooked and lunched on tagliatelle.

14.01.2022 In the garden at this time purple, orange, yellow and thyme. Rocket, calendula, fox gloves, violas, strawflowers, kale, leeks, and radicchio. I have been harves...ting spent straw from the hen house, manure from my neighbour, wood ash from friends. I have been adding layers of this food to my soil. I planted potatoes today and hope to plant more this coming week. Dinners and lunches are super simple: radicchio, rocket and kale cut finely and cooked in garlic then stirred through a pasta dish. Risotto cooked in stock made from onion leaves, celery, carrot and herbs then mixed with nettle, calendulas and feta cheese... See more

12.01.2022 Quince paste. You see it sold here and there as a specialty item. It looks fancy and complicated. But it is of course simple to make. Time is the barrier reall...y, because it takes lots of time. But you can make six months worth should you wish. It’s a staple in our home and I offer it with homemade labneh, and home made crackers. Quinces are readily available in April and May and all too often for free. Planting a tree in your garden ensures a supply and the tree produces beautiful flowers. In these photos, our recent helper Katie Ross, washing, cutting, squeezing lemon to make quince paste. My friend Lise Temple introduced me to quince paste fifteen years ago and I have been making it every year since. You need a large stainless steel pot (don’t use aluminium because it reacts with the quince). Cut the fruit, skin, seeds and all. Remove blemishes if significant. Cut in quarters or smaller. Smaller cooks faster. Cook until very soft then use a wand blender or food processor to make into a pulp, then weigh. Then add of the quinces weight in raw sugar. Add lemon juice. Then cook until the quince turns a very dark red. Then place in baking trays lined with cotton cloth/tea towels and dry the paste in the oven at 50C until very well set. It is set when you can slice it as a block and serve portions of it on a plate cube sized. Have it on crackers with cheese!

12.01.2022 This is the Wood Blewit- Lepista nuda (also known as Clitocybe nuda) look alike. The musrhoom in this picture is poisonous and is not the Wood Blewit. When you... first see it from the top your heart gets flushed and warm and your cheeks rosie, a spring in your step because you think you have found a blewit... You get closer, crunching on leaves and sticks. You gently peel away the mulch upon its pileus, you are feeling all confident and cosy. Your knife is drawn and you bend to slice and that's when you see it, the brown stain on the stipe. That lovely paint of rusty brown that has fallen from lamellae onto stipe. And the words cortinarius come flying through the forest at top speed, all the letters... the C and O, R and T, the I and N, A, R, I, U and that slithering S. The top looked Blewit, the lamellae too, the stipe was purple...but...the stain was brown, and now I know that in wet weather the shiny mirror like glow of a deep purple pileus is a clear neon sign for in fact ...Cortinarius.

09.01.2022 Join me for a winter preserving class in preparation for summer. Sunday 20th of June 2pm to 6pm at ORTO Farm, Blampied, Victoria. All details and bookings can... be found at https://villagedreaming.com.au/in/preserving-for-beginners/ Arrivederci! Cari Amici!

09.01.2022 Every week I bake sourdough bread. It is a most satisfying and enriching ritual. It is always extremely rewarding. No matter how tired I am there is always ener...gy for baking bread. When the leaven has soured too much and needs using, I use it to make either flat breads or in this case crackers. This idea has come from a combination of people such as Meg Ulman who is always up to something really good. And then I saw a post about adding edible flowers to cracker dough and I thought brilliant! I often add edible flowers to pasta dough but this is even better as the flowers are more apparent in the finished product. Artemisia helped me and took care of placing the flowers neatly on the folded sheets. See more

07.01.2022 On my website: in the greenhouse and outside with Orto Two. Photos of propagation and greenhouse growing and drying. https://villagedreaming.com.au//greenhouse-and-propagation/

07.01.2022 On my blog I have published an article that first appeared last year in ReNew magazine, called "Why I built a wetland rather than a dam". https://villagedreaming.com.au//why-i-built-a-wetland-rat/

03.01.2022 A family celebrating an 80th birthday with an Italian themed gathering. Celebrating life can be as simple as making food together, singing and dancing. Singing... songs, dancing together. This is what we traditionally have always done. Every cultural group has its roots in dance and song. Along the way we turned singing and dancing into a profession and something that you had to be excellent at to get involved. We are poorer for it. Dance and song and cooking are for all of us. Simple folk dances, simple songs bring us together in a powerful way I think.

02.01.2022 We made a simple chestnut spread. Cut the chestnut skin and boil chestnuts. Remove chestnut meat from shell and place in food processor. Add Cointreau, a light ...sugar syrup, and some chestnut water from the cooking process. A touch of lemon rind and a tiny, tiny amount of ground nutmeg. Process until very, very smooth then enjoy with slices of toasted bread. Delizioso! https://villagedreaming.com.au/