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Episode 11 - Enjoying Teenagers, Generous Hospitality and more Gardening // Heidi

Here's a wonderful conversation with Heidi van der Veen! She is married to Paul and they have 3 young adult/teenage children. I actually used to babysit Heidi's kids back in the day when I was a teenager! So it was lovely to get to sit down with her and get to know her more and hear about all things homemaking, gardening and even parenting. She shares her unique story of how she met her husband and moved to and from Holland and Australia, how experiencing others generosity has led her to give freely herself, and some of the secret sauce to having joyful relationships with teenagers. Of course we got into all the usual questions too, so check out her recipes and products below! I've also linked some more resources and tips Heidi sent me - on clean eating and gardening etc :)


Recipes:




Products:

Thermomix TM6

Pineapple cutter: https://amzn.asia/d/6cE2dud

Silicone bottle scraper: https://amzn.asia/d/eLM1Ug7



Other tips and tricks from Heidi:


Gardening:

"Paul build us all a 2 m2 veggie box each and when the kids were a bit younger they choose their own veggies to grow each season. Now it’s mums job ;) I absolutely love it. But the kids have learnt so much already so I don’t mind. We daily do our “rondje thuin” walk around our property/house and inspect every single fruit producing plant or tree. We have around 14 different fruit trees and shrubs. https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/starting-a-vegie-garden/102604544


Pineapple is one of those special ones, we have 7 plants/pots atm and at one stage we had three pineapples growing in one pot. It takes around 9 months from flower to ripe fruit….but its absolutely amazing!! They prefer a soil ph of around 4.5-6.5 , so an acidic soil.  Very easy to grow.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-xE8MvL7XM

 

Goji berries is another of my favorite. It’s like garden lollies full of vitamins  C and B and minerals such as magnesium and Thiamin ( sleep mineral/relaxing). Soil PH neutral ( 6.5) to slightly alkaline (7.5). i don’t give it much to be honest J but it’s very generous towards us ;) . https://guildfordgardencentre.com.au/2019/01/goji-berries/

 

Other varieties are figs, apples, oranges, passionfruit, lots of blue berries, blue and green grapes, finger lime, lime, mandarins, pineapple guava… it’s such a rich feeling to see the kids fill a lunch box container with blue berries or to walk with them through the garden and pick and eat as we walk. We try and eat everything as fresh as possible, but I don’t mind making some jams or applemoes from excess produce. I highly recommend growing as much food yourself. We don’t use any spray on our property. My favorite garden tool is the weed burner. My kids laugh when they see mum in her own world killing the weeds……they say i’m addicted J, its definitely very satisfying. For sale at Bunnings and worth every penny. https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/how-to/winter-weeding/9437794

 

We don’t have our property sprayed by a pest controller as we know it will kill so many good insects too. We need the bees for pollination and the wasps are great at cleaning up the aphids (so are ladybugs) on out citrus trees.

We grow a lot of veggies too."


Cooking:

"We cook a lot on our woodstove in winter. Often a whole organic chook on Mondays , we use that meat then for lunches for the following days. Then the bones and carcass goes back in the pot with water on the woodfire and will cook for roughly two days to make bone broth for the soup on Sunday.

 

I have also started making beef tallow and beef broth this way.


We avoid a lot of different additives, some of them are;.

* Yeast extract,

* Sulphites/Sulphur dioxide , preservative 220, on dried fruit, grapes, frankfurts , salami, ham,  cordial, sausages, ( headaches, asthmatic reactions, dermatitis)

* MSG monosodium glutamate, 621. It’s a flavor enhancer.

* artificial colours ,

* potassium sorbate (202)


Do your research!!!

They change the name of the preservatives so it can be very confusing.

The link below is a site from two sisters who have done A Lot if research into the effects on additives on our health. They have made 4 beautiful cook books too wich we use for baking, gf recipes , lunch box snacks…"


Cleaning:

"We use rub-a-dub-scrub Romola’s washing powder

We clean with castile soap, vinegar, clove oil, yellow soap bars, gumption.

I hate the toxic smell in the cleaning product isle in the shops.

I also make our own sunscreen and body lotions/face creams. The more you research the more you realise how many harmful ingredients we take in each day through our food or make up.

Krissy Ballinger has written a beautiful DIY book with amazing recipes for cleaning , body/ hair products and more.

We make a lot out of her book;  https://krissyballinger.com.au/

 

We buy our raw ingredients from this Christian family business over east;


Organisation & budgeting:

"- When buying new/second hand clothing I take one item out of the wardrobe for every new one that goes in.

-Keep boxes for every child in the shed, less stuff in the house/bedroom. Once they move out the boxes are ready to take along.

- Be content (and feel blessed) with the basics. (feel blessed with the abundance) We followed the barefoot investors book a number of years ago, great book for healthy budgeting ;  https://www.barefootinvestor.com/books

- Our children receive clothing money when they turn 16. $50 a month. This way they don’t overload their wardrobe, learn to budget, can learn to make their own decision ( in a modest way)

- For birthdays, our youngest gets a renewal subscription to his favorite magazine, western Angler, every year. This wat we don’t overload him with presents that are temporarily fun. He reads them over and over again and has build up a large amount of knowledge about our western Australian marine life. One day he might use them while doing his marine biology degree ;)"

 
 
 

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