FOOD STOCKPILE UP DATE

In February I wrote about my food stockpile. The pile had a theme – all those so called health foods that you hear about. I say ‘so called’ because they don’t make you any healthier lurking in the cupboard, and in fact make your wallet a lot less healthier.

Blueberries are a great example.

Yes they are healthy but not so great when they have travelled half way round the world and are 3 weeks old by the time we eat them out of their plastic punnet for £2.99 a go.

And ironically, here in Scotland you can grow blackcurrants very easily for nothing. You simply get a bit of branch off someone else who has blackcurrants and stick it in the ground. Hey presto, only a year later you will have your first abundant crop. They have just as many anti oxidants in them and are good in porridge, wine, jam, juice and so on.

Who has ever managed to grow enough blueberries to make wine, jam and juice and still have enough left to put on their porridge? We grow both, and the birds either don’t bother with the blackcurrants or there are so many that we don’t notice the difference. (NB the trick with blackcurrants is to prune back to the ground everything that has fruited right after you pick the fruit. It leaves hardly anything, but don‘t let that worry you. I treasure my handful of blueberries per bush, whilst struggling to pick about 20 kilos of blackcurrants off our 6 bushes...

Simply add some black currants to your porridge from the freezer. Put the £2-£3 you would have spent on the blueberries each week in a pot and treat yourself to a weekend away instead at the end of the year. And watch out for the marketing hype with any food, with the likely associated price hike.

some of our blackcurrant crop...

Anyway, back to the food stockpile.

I have had some successes using things up. The mung bean stew has been great. I have only four tubs left, and have been getting a tub or even half a tub out of the freezer and adding different flavourings, tins of tomatoes, curry powder, vegetables etc to give us a range of almost free meals. I have even tried it out on a number of visitors with very positive results, and even requests for the recipe.

NB I did, honestly, tell them the story of the wee black things (see Feb 10 blog entry!) and offer a menu choice. Not one person was bothered, and it led to some interesting conversations about food waste.

The Cajun powder goes well with the mung bean stew and it, too is diminished.

The dried onions, glutinous rice and dried shitake mushrooms have all gone.

The brown chick peas have almost gone. I thought they had gone but hubby re-organised the freezer after the door got left open and frosted it up. Behold! Another bag of pre-cooked brown chick peas. He thoughtfully thawed them out and they will no doubt go in the bin once no one eats them and they go off in the fridge.

I like the ordinary ones but not these. A friend suggested sprouting them, and guess what – they are yummy sprouted. So the dried ones have all been sprouted and eaten, and the ones from the freezer went to said friend who likes them fine.

I am ashamed to say that almost all of the rest is still there. I have remembered to take the glucosamine a few times, but not enough to use up a whole one. I am quite stuck with the pollen granules, red quinoa, almond butter and the miso. I ought to use them up but keep not doing so. I hereby resolve to do one thing a week to use something up…

I HAVE FOUND ANOTHER STOCK PILE!This one is art materials for children. I used to do one to one art work with kids who had problems and have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of poster paint, bubbles (about a litre of it but you dilute it with 80% water - HELP) PVA glue (500mls) and several of those glue sticks.

I have a grandchild who is working hard at using all this stuff up but reckon it could take her the rest of her life to get through all that paint despite her best efforts.

There is a wonderful book called ‘Material World A Global Family Portrait’, by P Menzel. He went to different parts of the world and got people to put all their belongings outside their home. These were catalogued and photographed and the photos are in the book. The book also details the food the family eats. It was striking how many of the families only get to eat once a day, or who just eat beans and rice all the time whatever time of day it is and are grateful to be able to eat at all.

The American family’s stuff took up half a block. There was a family in Ethiopia who had only the clothes they stood up in, some cooking pots and a pair of wellingtons.

That is why I cannot bear to just throw away all this food and stuff that I should never have bought and may still be able to use up.

Actual stuff such as furniture, books and clothes is much easier to let go of. The money is gone, and it is better to send it to the charity shop or sell it so that someone else can get the use of it.

But you cannot do that with old food, part used poster paints and glue sticks.

So my resolution is to not let these things into my life without careful consideration. That is where the problem lies. 
But how to remember when I am at the shops and I want something???

Make do and Mend

Handy hints re:
• Making ink from soot, barley bannocks and a washing up bowl ‘shower’ should you ever need them!

Here’s thought:

The real value of things has been lost because they are so cheap here in the West and we think it will be that way forever. The things of true value such as food, water, shelter and community are often cheap in money terms until they become scarce and then we realise you can't eat money. 

These essential resources are likely to get more expensive as they become scarcer, which is already happening in many parts of the world. Historically we don’t notice something is running out until it is gone.

So the fact that many parts of the world (including the western world, such as Arizona) are running out of drinking water does not stop us (or even them) from using it to fill swimming pools and water lawns.

It is just hard for us to believe it until it's too late. And elected governments run for a term of about 4 years. What vested interest do they have in unpopular policies to conserve resources?  It just means they don’t get re-elected.

Our value base has changed a lot over the last 40 years or so without us noticing. Things have come to seem like the Only Hygienic Way for instance, when we managed perfectly well before.

Many people now think it is unhygienic to shower less than once a day or not flush the toilet every time we use it.
Remember If it's brown flush it down, if it's yellow let it mellow? 
NB if you have a toddler who plays with the toilet don't try to save on water this way!  If your dog drinks the toilet water you may also want to think here - or shut the lid!

 I have been following Mark Boyle’s blog on http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/ (he has just published a great book, the Moneyless Man).

He is quite a bit younger than me and I was struck by the things even he doesn’t know that his granny would have.
He also managed to do lots that I would never do of course. For example I am grateful to Mark for providing proper instructions on how to build a rocket stove.

Lots of people around the world rely on rocket stoves, made from old tin cans, to do their cooking on. They are efficient and use very little fuel. But many of us here would be appalled at the thought of having to use one.
Even if we in the UK (and I am sure many other Western countries) are on the dole (unemployment benefit) with hardly any money most of us would rather get into debt to pay the electricity bill than cook in the garden on a rocket stove in the better weather. Yeah I said most of us. I’m afraid this is where my family snigger and think to themselves ‘Not our Janet she would be out there under a borrowed Gazebo in the rain, actually’ and my Dad says ‘most people aren’t like you’ but actually he’s just the same. Well I would be out there in the rain under a gazebo  if it meant I had enough money and did not get into debt.

Here’s an example of what Mark Boyle doesn’t know that his granny could have told him.  (Sorry mark!!)
The thing about solar showers is that the water is gone before you get the soap off. Any good Girl Guide knows the best camping shower is a bowl of water.
Use a soap and flannel to soap yourself. Then stand in the basin and use a jug to pour  the water over yourself and wash the soap off. The basin catches the water of course so you can keep re-using it.  Or just use the flannel to wash off the soap.   And lean over the bowl to rinse your hair before you use the soap.

World Vision actually gives families plastic bowls for the purpose. They are like an over-sized washing up bowl and large enough for an average person to sit or kneel down in which is even better.

Mark spent ages making ink from mushrooms.

In ‘The Garden Cottage Diaries, my year in the eighteenth century’ historian Fiona Houston describes how we used to make ink from soot here in Scotland. Much easier and available in abundance if living a subsistence lifestyle. Apparently it also lasts well on the page.

I think fiona just mixed soot with water  but I have loaned the book to a friend! Soot lasts hundreds of years as ink and does not damage paper as it is basically carbon.


Mark  agonises over whether to make bread, which he is fond of.

But it is a major hassle to make, due to the necessity for also making an outside cob oven and having to make sourdough as a starter.

In eighteenth century Britain they got around this by making flat bread, using whatever grains they had. It was unleavened and cooked on a flat iron griddle on top of the fire. They also made barley bannocks, delicious eaten hot . Barley was cheaper than wheat and was easier to grow in Scotland. http://bakingforbritain.blogspot.com/ has a bannock recipe.

 
Fiona Houston also has an authentic Scottish recipe for Bannocks and flatbread in her book.  She is a food historian and her recipes are very good. 

All this 'making do' led me to think about mending clothes. I tend to think it is a waste of time and I would be better doing something else, so the mending just sits there. Ultimately it means throwing the clothes in the bin though (or use them for rags/make a quilt - but how many of us bother?) Yet another example of how we undervalue what we have because it is cheap in money terms to buy.

So today I mended a tear in a skirt and remembered how good I am at it. I showed it to my daughter and it took us while to find the mend. I mended the strap on a bra and sewed a button on a cardigan. I tried to mend the sleeve on another cardigan only to find the whole sleeve had worn thin .
How great is that – I actually managed to wear something out! That cardigan was a favourite. It is cashmere and cost only £10 in a Tesco sale. I have had my money’s worth out of it.

It is a rare for us to wear clothes out . Or anything else for that matter. We get fed up with it and want new stuff. Or we buy the new stuff and it doesn’t all fit in the cupboard so then we get rid of the old stuff. And yet so many people in the world do not have enough.

One result of all this has been the growth of companies who do kerbside collections for our unwanted clothes and bric a brac. These are shipped out to other countries and sold to people who don’t have easy access to such things. Seems like a tidy solution but it has apparently led to the collapse of the textile industry in some countries, causing people to lose their jobs and the country to lose its self sufficiency in textile production.

So really the solution is to stop buying so much and wear out what we have.

What I have would probably last me the rest of my life though and I am bored with it already.

I am great at using what I have and not buying more until I go to the shops.

I am now trying not to buy anything brand new without first thinking whether I really need it and whether it could be got second hand. It has reduced our purchases and helped the finances into the bargain but is it still hard.
Sometimes you just want stuff because it seems like everyone else buys it. Buying knitting yarn and fibre for spinning seems to be my blind spot and I have so far not counted it as buying something new! I do have a lot already though – not counting the fibre and yarn that I sell as part of my business, this is just my personal stuff.

Mending the clothes made it feel like I had something new, because the things had been un-wearable for so long whilst waiting to be fixed. So it not only saved the cost of the item I repaired it saved the cost of a new one too.

And it was more satisfying to prevent these things from being thrown away than it would have been to go shopping.

I was going to bin the truly worn out cardigan. Then I realised I have been combing the charity shops for knitwear to make into felted knitting in the washing machine! So my cardigan is soon to be re-born as a felted knitted bag with beads on it. And if it doesn’t work, nothing is lost.

In the meantime I have had fun making a felted tea cosy from washing machine felt. (sadly not re-cycled, this was made from scratch.) I needed one and managed to design my own, with various buttons and handle holes in it. This means it fits two sizes of tea pot and the cafetiere. And making it kept me away from the shops…

.

IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN?

IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN?


It is often said that if you have lost your way in life and don’t know what to do about it, look at what you loved to do as a child, and start there. As a child I loved to make things, especially food and textiles, to garden and ride my bike. It has not changed.

My part time business is textile based, and for most of my adult life I have had an argument going on inside my head about whether I should earn a more meagre living as a textile artist or a better off one doing something a lot heavier. Whenever I become too focused on the money instead of the love of the craft, it seems to let me know in some way and back I come to what I love.



If you follow your heart, your brain will tell you to be practical and remind you that there are bills to pay.

But continue to push yourself and to do things that challenge your integrity and your well-being could be at risk. It is quite simply bad for our health. And what if you didn’t make it to retirement, because the job you pushed yourself to keep doing had made you sick?



Simplicity offers a way out:

Eliminate the surplus spending that does not add to your quality of life. Save up a nest egg instead and then you can take a year off, take a risk, or use the money to do what you really want.



A job that is not in line with your integrity tends to lead to higher spending anyway, in the form of expensive holidays, treats to compensate for having to work and through having to pay for things that there is no time left do, such as cutting the grass and housework.



Now ask yourself these questions:

• What would make you really sad if you never got to do it?

• If you just went and did it, what is the worst thing that could happen?

• If that worst thing did happen, could you live with, or deal with the consequences?



My Dad was 80 in February this year. These are his questions, and my sister mentioned them when she gave a talk at his birthday party. I reckon they may have something to do with why he is still fit, active and happy at the age of 80.



Few of the things that keep us fit, active and happy actually cost a lot of money. STRESS may even cause more harm to our bodies than many of the more concrete health concerns we read about such as food additives etc.

Does it really make sense to work full time in a stressful job that you don’t love in order to pay for supermarket organic veg that has travelled half way round the world?

It may be better to work part time, have a simpler lifestyle, relax a lot more and eat local non organic veg...

Even better, grow some veg and don’t worry about the rest.

I just got hold of a ‘free’ green guide to my area. It is actually advertising for local ‘green’ businesses, which pay to be in there, and get priority for an article if they advertise. There is nothing wrong with that of course and I used to advertise in it myself.

However I am struck by how many different ways there are to spend money in order to deal with a malaise which is largely lifestyle based, or to do with stress and general discontent with our lot. Almost the whole magazine if filled with articles and advertisements about complementary health clinics, stress and relaxation treatments.

You need to work more in order to pay for all those treatments or therapies, but maybe working less and spending less could lead to the problem going away of its own accord?

Even if you do something you love, you still need time just to hang out and do nothing much.

Colin Bevan in his recent book ‘No Impact Man’ quotes Kurt Vonnegut: ‘The purpose of life is to futz around’. Yeah…

On foraging

I wrote the initial foraging article, 'On Foraging For Gloves' for the Financial Interity website and it can be viewed there. 

Here is a sequel. 

As you will have guessed by now, I hate waste. 

It is not about the money - you can buy many things so cheaply now that it is often hardly worth buying second hand or repairing things from a financial point of view.   Bear that in mind when you get scared about inflation - many things are cheaper now than they were 20 years ago, unless you really need the newest model.
It is worth it from the point of view of not wasting the resources of our planet, and from the point of view of our own integrity however.  It makes you feel a lot better if you know you are doing what is right.
 
Yet in the great abundance we have here,  it seems to take so much energy to re-use and value everything, and we already have so much that if we didn't waste anything, I feel I would never need to buy things again.  Some of them would probably outlive me.  
Face it - how long does it take to wear out a good coat, or a bicycle, or a sideboard, wardrobe, pair of wellingtons... for most adults these things last a very long time. 
We get rid of them because we are tired of them, or want another colour, or someone just bought us a new one for Christmas. 

I read somewhere (I think it was in the book 'Affluenza'  - see link) that in the 1950's some great marketing conference looked at what they could get us to buy now that we had everything we needed.  They set an aim of making shopping a leisure activity.  People said it couldn't be done...

What has set me off this time is seeing a bag of perfectly good stuff spilling out of a bin bag where it had been dumped in a lane.  First hubby came home with a pair of crutches (yes really!) out of the bag.  They were in perfect condition and have now been re-homed at the physiotherapy department of a local hospital where they should have been returned in the first place. 

So I had to go and have a look too and came home with a child's car booster seat - slightly muddy but otherwise fine.  There is nothing that can really go wrong with a booster seat so it is perfectly safe and now also nice and clean.  We will keep it for our grandchild.

That made me think about waste, as I had been about to go shopping (!) to buy a new jumper and a cardigan.  I resolved to go round all the charity shops and came home with a 100% cotton heavy cardigan originally from Next , which  looks brand new, and a silk and cotton jumper.  Both are lovely.  I also found a floaty layered skirt which will look nice with boots.  Total cost £12 approx.
I wanted a new brown eyeshadow because THE OTHER ONE HAD RUN OUT.  How great is that, I actually managed to finish something before I bought a new one.  So long as you don't count the other five eyeshadows that I don't really use...

I went into the local branch of a well-known chain of chemist's shops and the assistant helped me to find one which was exactly what I wanted for £16 ($23) - ouch. 
Luckily I overheard another assistant mention an alternative brand and spotted one for £5 ($7).  It was not quite the right colour, and somehow I felt pressure to buy the first one.  However, there was 3 times as much eyeshadow in the cheaper one, and I bought it.  Presumably, being larger,  it will last me the rest of my life...
When I got to the checkout, I realised I had enough points on my discount card to get it for nothing.  It had taken me about 3 years to save up the points and I almost forgot to ask - great.

I stopped to do the re-cycling on the way home, and spotted a bin bag dumped by the clothes re-cycling bin.  It was too big to go through the slot in the bin and the contents would be spoiled in the rain.  I had a quick look and there was some good stuff in there, so I put it in the car and brought it home.

My haul has netted me 5 pairs of jeans, 5 t-shirts, some pyjamas, and a couple of other things.  The rest will be taken back to be re-cycled, and I will make a donation to charity for the clothes I am keeping. 

It is better than them being ruined in the weather, and if I make a donation then it is a win-win.  Not sure what the ethics of that is,  but if feels okay.

PS re the Amazon link.  I am not an affiliate for Amazon and do not make any money out of you using that link.  I am neither for or against any particular book seller.
 If there is a better way for you to get the book, please feel free.  I just couldn't get the picture of the book to come up without the link. 
I borrowed my copy of Affluenza from a friend.  I have got many books by special request from my local library.  (see previous blog entry about books and libraries).

listening to owls

LISTENING TO OWLS


We were away on holiday last week. NOT AGAIN I hear you cry.

We go away for lots of short breaks and weekends within the United Kingdom where we live, and I often combine weekends away with teaching my spinning and weaving workshops.

I love the idea of work being blended in with the rest of life, rather than being something that ends at 5pm when the rest of your life (therefore) begins.

In order for this to be successful, the work has to be enjoyable and there must not be too much of it. I have read books about work becoming part of life that are basically about working all the time – ie taking your laptop on the beach etc and simply working there, whilst everyone else is having fun.

You are still working whether you are on the beach or not and if you are doing that it probably just means you are a workaholic.

What I am talking about here though, is working part time and in a non-structured, flexible way.

That may sound impossible but  not only is it possible, we have done it for years.

It takes a bit of thought, planning and well, work to actually achieve this however. 
It means working out how to maximise your income whilst at the same time minimising expenditure, without cutting out anything that adds to your quality of life.
Then you can work part time. There will be more about how to do that in future blogs. You could also visit http://www.financialintegrity.org/  to learn more about the Your Money Or Your Life nine step programme on how to get ahead with money.  This is a charitable organisation which aims to help people,  not someone who  makes money out of it.

Well anyway, there we were, visiting my sister at a Camphill community called Botton village http://www.camphill.org/ in a beautiful Yorkshire Dale, miles up a single track road with no mobile phone reception (Yippee).

And I was woken up by the hooting of owls. I cannot resist getting up when I hear Things In The Night.

Owl no 1 was in a tree right outside the window, outlined against the dawn sky. I heard owl no 2 answer and they chatted for a while until they had located one another, then off they went. I stayed and watched the sun come up – wonderful.

At home, we have a little owl that comes and sits on the telegraph pole in our back garden. So now I am grateful for the telegraph pole, which I must admit until then was an irritation. Apparently little owls eat a lot of worms, beetles and that sort of thing. Hopefully I can tempt it to the odd slug too…

That figures, (them eating worms I mean) because the first time I heard it  was when we got to grips with our fledgling vegetable garden a few years ago and got a load of manure. Our worm population doubled practically overnight, and our little owl population went up by 100% (ie from zero to one!).

At the time I just thought ‘what the heck is all that din?’ rather than oh great – a little owl. It was easy to figure out what it was though, even in the dark, because in silhouette they look rather like Garfield and are smaller than the average owl. Even I could spot it in the bird book.

On one of my night-time slug forays, armed with a pair of scissors,  ( yes I know, yuck but at the time I was bagging 70 slugs a night)  I heard a strange rustling noise next to a patch of garden where I had spread some manure.
The torch showed about a dozen worms literally munching on the bits of straw etc  in the manure.
I didn’t even know they did that, but what an amazing sight. They have huge mouths that just open up out of nowhere. And they really do make quite a noise.

I heard on the radio that the wild life in your garden is likely to be your wildlife and not even shared with the garden next door.  Ie it only exists because of what your garden is like. Gardens are mini habitats in their own right.

In our garden, there many different kinds of bumble bees, solitary bees and mason bees, including some little black ones  which I think are quite rare.  When I heard about it being 'our' wildlife it made sense, because when we first moved here, all we had was a square of scrubby grass and there were no bees - and no frogs, lizards, stoats or little owls either.

Those creatures are there because of plants we have, like the cotoneaster, which flowers for a long time. I was going to dig it up until I realised how many bees were on it. And they are probably nesting somewhere in the garden. It is a good idea to find out where and make sure you don’t destroy their habitat by mistake.

That is the great thing about simplicity – having time to watch the worms, and the energy to get up and listen to the owls.

it all began with a jar of beans...

I am challenging myself to have zero food waste. We have been doing this for a while, and really don't waste much OR SO I THOUGHT.
well, it includes what is in the cupboard and does not get eaten too, and I have only been counting what actually goes in the bin.

Today, I decided to cook some of the large jar of mung beans that have been looking at me reproachfully from beside the cooker. I have a really good recipe for mung bean casserole. We try to eat beans once a week. Any more seems to interfere with my digestion and I get well, er, bunged up.
The lid of the large (10 litre/4pint) jar was stuck. We both tried to no avail and I resorted to pouring boiling water over the lid in the hope it would loosen. It loosened so much that water got inside before I realised.

MUNG BEAN COOKING MARATHON...This meant that some of the beans inside got wet so I decided to cook them all, and freeze the remaining bean casserole. (Goodness only knows when I will eat all that but never mind.)
I put the beans into 2 large pots and poured boiling water over them. WHAT WERE THE WEE BLACK THINGS???
I thought they were rougue seeds but closer inspection revealed they were some kind of insect. Very dead ones, but once I had given the pot a stir there were about 12 in all. Not weavils, but something insectivorous.

DECISION TIME
So now the question was this:
Do I chuck all the beans in the bin or not?
I decided not to, as the insects were well and truly dead and there were not that many (is that actually possible with insects, or were the rest just lurking...)

HOW MUCH OTHER STUFF IS HIDING IN THE CUPBOARDS?
I decided (in between cooking mung bean stew) to do a stock take - how much other food in there was too old, or was simply not being used?

Now we are veteran de-junkers and thought we were good at using things up, not buying things we don't need and so on. Not the case. Clutter, including the kitchen and bathroom kind, creeps back in the night, I swear it does, even when you have a 'one in one out' policy. Except that our one in one out policy has somehow managed to by-pass the kitchen.

So I spent the afternoon doing a stock take and made a list of all the things in the cupboards that have not been getting used up. See if you can spot a theme here...

JANET'S KITCHEN CUPBOARDS NOT-BEING-USED-UP LIST.

1.  Sprouted broccoli powder - unopened packet use by Nov 08

2. Pollen tablets use by Mar 08
3. Kelp powder - slowly going down but elderly - Date unknown
4. Cardamoms - very old.  Why do these come in such large quantities I 
     use about 12 pods a year, and do like them - but the famiy don't.
5. Cajun powder Bought in a large quantity but we don't use enough of it.
6. Fenugreek seeds smelled off, age unknown and don't like the way I 
    smell of them the next day! These went in the bin. The only thing to do 
    so so far.
7. Wine yeast. Oh dear. I chucked this out and then bought bread yeast.
8. Bread yeast - managed to use it up but the bread was a bit solid. Was
past its best.
I HAVE JUST FOUND THE ECHINACEA. I nearly bought more, but there it was under all the stuff I don't use.
9. Brown chick peas, large quantity. YUCK. I really do like most things,
incuding ordinary chick peas. These still have their coats on and I find them indigestible and the coats just won't come off. I have some in the
freezer all cooked and ready to use, too. Maybe I will make chick pea flour,
in my state of the art grinder/processor, or try sprouting them.

10. Xanthan gum. Apparently good for making non-gluten flour stick
together to make better cakes and bread. I don' eat cakes and bread often.
When I did try this it had a dramatic effect in the wind department...
11. Dried onions. Rescued from a holiday cottage. Now I know why they were
there. How can they taste so different to ordinary onions?
12. Carob powder. Why do I keep buying this? The last packet went in the
bin, and it is highly likely this one will too, but not today.
13. Cocoa. Probably bought when I made a birthday cake but nobody uses it
for anything else.
14. Shitaki mushrooms, dried. Best before Mar 2009
15. Pollen granules. Was going to use these on cereal but they make it go
all yellow and too sweet for me.
16. Almond butter, 3 jars. Best before 2004 (ouch) still fine, actually and
very tasty but also very fattening and I am never sure what to do with it.
17. Glutinous rice. (see later!)
18. Rice noodles half packet (got forgotten)  Half a packet is not enough for 2 of us. 
We used to use these a lot but somehow we forgot about them.
19. Sesame seeds. I used to put these in seed mixes as a snack but they are
impossible to eat without shoveling them directly into your mouth and always
end up at the bottom of the jar. I have ground some and added to a flour mix
for baking (except that I don't often bake)
20. Powdered Wasabi use best before 2003. (where does the time go?)
21. Aduki beans. Same story as the other beans, only these are even older.
22. Poppy seeds. What exactly are you supposed to do with these? You buy
half a pound (450g), sprinkle them on 2 loaves of bread and are stuck with them
for the rest of your life. My mother had some and I bet you've got some too...
23. Popping corn.
24. Red Quinoa. Never used this. Same as the white stuff with its skins on.
25. White quinoa. I do try and like this. Each time I cook some it
goes off in the fridge because no one else will eat it. And no, it doesn't make
a good alternative to porridge.
26. Various sprouting seeds. Actually I do sprout a lot, so I get to feel a
tiny bit smug here. These jumbo packets were a bit over-ambitious though.
27. Hatcha miso. Good intentions but packet never opened.
28. Brown rice miso in fridge, opened. forgot I had it when I bought the
above. Not sure how long its been there. Never seem to have the chives and
parsley cut to go with it.
29. Buckwheat. Must make this into flour too...I bought it to sprout but it
is a challenge. You have to soak it in water and rinse every half an hour for
4 hours before sprouting or it goes stinky. And no, it doesn't make a good
alternative to porridge either, even with cinammon.
30. Ground mixed seeds for porridge. Keep forgetting and, well it is nicer
without it. I prefer whole sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and DO use them.
31. Several half packets of rye bread in the freezer.
32. TEA: Green tea (wrong make) 4 packets, Blackcurrant tea bags 3 packets,
choco tea, lemon verbena tea Pau D'Arco tea (hunted long and hard for this).
All need using up.
33. 2 packets and half a jar of linseeds in the freezer.

DID YOU SPOT THE THEME?Yes, I have been reading those healthy eating books. All of these things are supposed to change our lives and make us healthier.
Well they don't make your wallet any healthier.
Here is my take on it:
Keep the money and you won't need to work so hard to pay for all those expensive promises. Then you can relax more and be less stressed. That is better for your health than anything else.

JANET'S HEALTH PLAN.
We all know how to eat healthily. Your mother tells you, you learn it at school, on TV, in books and newspapers. That doesn't make you do it, any more than buying expensive supplements and super foods does.
If you want to be healthier:
* Eat 5-9 fruit and veg a day. (not all fruit some green stuff too)
* Exercise half an hour 3 times a week
* Take time to relax.
* Simplicity leads to less stress, as we get out of debt and begin to exercise choices in spending and lifestyle.

Nothing new there then, huh? Bet your mum could have told you that.

JANET'S USE-UP-THE-FOOD PLAN
So now I have 2 vats of mung bean casserole (amazing how those beans swell up) with shitaki mushrooms and dulse. (Forgot about the dulse and several other kinds of seaweed I have.)

I have also cooked the glutinous rice.
Neglected to tell hubby what it was and he spent a while trying to rescue it and make it non-sticky by rinsing it through the sieve. The sieve may never recover, and we now have a large quantity of cooked glutinous rice. Amazing how that swells up too.
It was great when we had it in that Thai restaurant but what to do with it at home? Glutinous rice and mung bean casserole for a week could lead to plumbing problems...

Have also managed to:
Use up one blackcurrant tea bag.
Start lots of seeds sprouting.
Make a variation of peanut butter cookies (sugar free peanut and almond butter with gluten free flour that needs using up cookies). These have had a lukewarm reception.

PS: I also forgot about the 2 large jars of apricot kernals, one in the fridge and one in the freezer. I have doggedly eaten 2 seeds a week (ish) for the last 3 years and the jar is NOT going down...These may well end up in the bin. I feel guilty every time I open the fridge.

It's January and there's food in the garden

It's January and there's food in the garden. That is in spite of all the snow over the last few weeks.
Our journey to simple living and frugality has always invovled a flirtation with the idea of self sufficiency.
A part of me is wistful about living in a culture where that was still possible. Where you could just build a house and the local Council would not make you come and take it down again because it did not have plumbing and wiring and meet building control standards.
In one of the World Vision charity newsletters, there was lad living in an 8foot by 6 foot square brick shelter with no windows.
He had built his house with money provided by World Vision for people who had no where to live. He was 18 years old and by himself. When asked why he did not build a bigger house he simply said that as it was the first one he had built, he thought it best to build a small one! To him it was a palace. I wonder whether he would rather have my bungalow with plumbing and electricity? It means a constant drain on the finances that he will not have.
When you have to pay Council Tax (the UK's property tax paid each year based on the value of you house) and electricity and gas it can seem like there really is little chance of cutting down those bills to the point when you don't need so much money.

It is more possible than it seems though and we are a case in point. We put our efforts into making sure there is no waste. the idea is to spend no money unless it adds to our quality of life and enjoyment.

Earning a living growing vegetables in the garden may not be sustainable in Western culture. What they can do is to supplement our income somewhat. I have heard it said that growing vegetables does not pay because they are cheap and do not save much money. NOT TRUE. Admittedly if you work it out purely on the basis of how much a carrot costs it does not save much money. But here is our sum.
1. Substitute buying more expensive groceres and eat what you have in the garden. Plan meals based on what is ready and change your diet to suit. it will end up being more delicious and healthier once you can bring yourself to make the change.
2. Plan what you plant based on what you eat a lot of.
3. Plant things that are expensive to buy. For example rocket and watercress are expensive to buy. Rocket and land cress are very easy to grow and will self seed.
4. Grow small amounts of many different things rather a lot of any one thing. Then you won't get sick of it. NB no one is likely to eat more than 12 large cabbages in a year...
5. Any thing that says on the packet it is an 'early' can also be planted at the tail end of the year with the exception of parsnips. If you have any cover at all, even a bit of plastic and some old bricks, you can plant something under it to provide winter salad. (when it is most expensive to buy). You can extend the season a lot even by planting outside in August and September in Scotland so if you live farther south it is even more worthwhile. We have a 20 foot long polytunnel and get greens all winter.

6. The following are hardy winter salad crops in order of hardiness, with the hardiest first.

* Kale. This is yummy in salads as well as cooked. The trick is to pick it often and then you get lots of young tender leaves. These are sweet and not at all like the tough bitter old leaves we often think of when the word 'kale'is mentioned. And it has all those winter vitamins in it.

* Leeks. Will stand outside all winter no problem just like the kale. If I had a tiny plot I would put a kale plant and 2 dozen leeks in it for the winter.

* Winter cabbage. Great for cole slaw.

* Mooli, or White Radish. A long huge radish. The variety long White Icicle is very hardy. Grate it in the cole slaw along with the carrot, put it grated in stews, curries and soups. I once had Mooli Parathas in an Indian Cafe and it was great, so try stuffing savoury pancakes with it too.

* Early carrots planted in september - will survive well outside till December. Will survive all winter in a polytunnel or frame. If they are small, leave them and they will start to grow in February and be a good size by April.

* Lambs lettuce. will survive almost any weather even without a cover. put something over it and it continues growing all winter. Ours has an old plastic caravan window over it and has survived -13c.

* Claytonia. Will last all winter in a poly tunnel. Does quite well in a cold frame with a layer of bubble wrap inside it in Scotland. If you live south of Scotland the world is your oyster. I used to live in London and could grow winter lettuce outside till November. Claytonia is much hardier than winter lettuce.

Right now we are eating the following straight from the garden: All of the above except the carrots and mooli which are all eaten. PLUS spinach, pak choi, endives, lettuce, beetroot, parsley and a number of different herbs. A lot of this was planted in July, August and September and that is the trick. And do bear in mind we had 12 inches of snow for 2 weeks and have had temperatures of minus 13c several times this winter.

So dinner starts with 'what's in the garden', and mostly includes a salad. We use leeks instead of onions until they run out.

GROW SALAD SPROUTS
We are sprouting most of the time. Any green salad looks better for some sprouts. We have two of those stacking salad sprouters and keep them in one huge stack to save space. I don't keep the sprouts in the dark to start with like some books suggest. I do keep the trays tilted all the time as they drain better. Irun them under a brisk tap twice a dy.

At the moment we have a mixture of soya beans, chick peas, 2 kinds of lentils and aduki beans in one tray and alfalfa in the other. It looks really good in a salad and the first kind is ready in a couple of days. Chick peas are the quickest of all so in an emergency just do a tray of them. Red Cabbage sprouts are really tasty and colourful.

I soak all the seeds overnight in water before putting them in the trays as it speeds them up by a day or so. NOTE: next time you are in a supermarket check out the price of salad sprouts. If they have them at all they are not cheap. Grow them yourself and they cost pennies.
I take them when we visit friends for dinner as a gift and they are always appreciated.
I put the word out that I wanted the seeds for sprouting as many people have them but don't use them. In return I gave the donors some sprouted seeds.
Another tip: they also grow well in the garden and work out a lot cheaper than buying seeds that are intended for the garden. You never know what variety they are but they grow well.
The same goes for seeds sold for culinary use, such as celery or coriander. Just plant some in the garden and they will grow. I have grown all my celery like that for years.

YOu don't need to move to the country to do this. In fact please don't - it is a lot more expensive.
We used to live in the country and we know.
You will spend more on extra fuel for the car than you will save growing vegetables and it is a lot worse for the planet.

If you are not a gardener and want to do a little bit, here is a suggestion.
If you have a 1 metre plot of land, plant one potato, a few cloves of garlic from the supermarket and some rocket or a few lettuce plants this spring. Then in July put some lambs lettuce and some more garlic in and it will be ready in spring.
Next year put in a kale plant, a dozen leeks and some salad.
The year after, some mange tout on tall canes and a courgette plant.
In year 4 go back to the beginning.
It will taste like nothing else. If you don't have a garden plant a few herbs in pots on a windowsill. Try basil if you have a sunny window sill. If you have a patio or path or anything outside at all, plant one potato in a bucket.
If you don't want to grow from seed buy a pot of herbs from the supermarket. split them and put them in several pots and they will last a lot longer. The more you pick them the longer they will last, so long as you always leave some leaves on the plant. Basil and parsley work well.