Kate from Living the Frugal Life’s Desert Island Dinners

Posted by louisa on Thursday 27 January 2011 in desert island dinners | 2 comments

I mentioned earlier that I had a bit of a wacky idea a few days ago – “Desert Island Dinners”. Basically Desert Island Discs but with a frugal/simple living theme instead of music.

I picked Kate from Living the Frugal Life to be one of the first castaways – since she’s got such a great, inspiring blog and I wanted to get my hands on some of her simple living secrets!

First up, the premise:

You’re about to become a castaway on a desert island. The desert island will provide you with misc edible vegetation/wildlife and items that can be fashioned into basic pots/pans/utensils — but just before you’re whisked away, you have enough time to grab a herb or spice from your store cupboard; a special kitchen gadget/tool/utensil or piece of equipment; a cookbook; and a packet of seeds to grow on your any-climate island paradise. What would you pick to take with you? And which of your simple/frugal living skills do you think would be the most valuable while you’re there, and why?

And here are Kate‘s replies:

Herb or spice: Unequivocally this would have to be fresh garlic. I use it constantly and am galled when the stores of our homegrown start to get sprouty (round about this time of year), which leaves me with the dilemma of either buying store-bought, or making do only with our dehydrated garlic.

When it comes to kitchen gadgets my answer is pretty boring. I’d take a good knife. A good knife in combination with good knife skills will answer so many needs in a kitchen. I’m not much for gadgets, and a good knife would be very hard to improvise. For preference I’d take the Japanese made santoku my husband gave me as a gift a few years back. It pretty much instantly became my most heavily used knife. I’d been skeptical of santokus up to that time.

When it comes to cookbooks, I’m more of a skimmer than a follower. Almost invariably I end up departing from written recipes when it comes to cooking. I trained as a chef, which provides the confidence to do so. But when it comes to baking, in which I lack formal training, that’s a very different story. In baking you must follow fairly strict guidelines, prepare your dough, and then relinquish control to the oven. So perhaps I’d take a baking cookbook. Tough call between Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, Dorie Greenspan’s Baking with Julia, and Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking. Very tough call. Forced to choose, it would probably come down to the first though, since it’s so comprehensive.

One packet of seeds would be tough to choose. I’d agonize over the choice, but would probably end up picking Tuscan kale. It’s reliable, healthy, tasty, versatile, and has a very long season.

Most valuable skill – I probably couldn’t predict which of my skills would turn out to be most most valuable. Whether well founded or not, I have a pretty high confidence in my ability to do most things at least passably well, so I’m willing to try anything once and unlikely to give up in despair. I think I’ve learned to improvise fairly well, which would surely be a useful skill on a desert island. I consider myself a decent observer of the natural world, which would also be useful. I can garden and cook and am quite content with solitude. Again if forced to choose, the first skill, confidence, would be the one I’d predict to be most valuable. On the other hand, I have absolutely no sense of direction, so my exploration of the island would be very slow and cautious.

Thanks so much to Kate for taking part – I’m really interested in learning about santokus now so I’m really glad I asked! I also can’t believe I forgot garlic when I was having my cumin or chilli conundrum! How could I cook without garlic?!!?

Anyone else want to join in the mirth and merriment? :)

What’s in your veg plot over winter…?

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 8 September 2010 in growing | 0 comments

A weekend away (on a great cheesemaking short course) means I’m behind on the garden again, sigh…

As well as trying to give encouragement to the bit behind the curve summer veg in the greenhouse, I’m trying to clear space for the winter/spring veg too. I know I should be grateful that most of the courgette/marrow plants are still giving forth their bountiful and succulent fruits, but I’ve got about a hundred brassica seedlings awaiting their moment in the fading autumn sun.

Like my summer growing this year, I’m still experimenting with my winter/early spring selection – to see what grows in this garden – so I’ve got a range of different things to try this year. My leeks are already planted out and doing well. So that’s something. And there are some late-autumn-cropping broccoli on the way. But the rest of the aforementioned brassicas (two types of winter/early spring cabbages, two types of kale and cauliflowers to over winter) are causing me the most concern at the moment. All those seedlings are currently in our sun porch/nursery. I want to get them out into the garden ASAP – they really want to stretch their legs – I’m just not sure where they’re going to go. I think I need to get more mercenary about the dumping the underperforming squashes (another story, another sigh) – and perhaps even cull a still very productive courgette plant, since it’s the only thing left in one of my little curved beds on the middle level. There are also a few containers/planters that could be recommissioned and if I ever get around to building the large/low raised-bed style planters I’ve been planning, that would buy me a lot more growing space, although I had mentally allocated that for garlic…

I can’t forget that the summer harvest from the greenhouse will largely be over and done with in the next few weeks, so I’ll have some space in there for more sheltered growing. I’m not interested in heating the greenhouse really but it’ll be more sheltered and warmer than outside so I suppose some of the tubs of brassicas can have a slightly easier life in there… I’m going to use the (also unheated) sun-porch for winter salad because it’s easier to keep an eye on in there.

…So that’s another half dozen tasks to add to my to-do list. Busy busy busy!

What are you growing this winter? Is there anything you’re starting now/soon to overwinter? What do you grow in an unheated greenhouse overwinter?

Preparing for winter

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 27 July 2010 in growing | 1 comment

I claim to be rather disorganised (usually as a bluff for why I haven’t done something I don’t want to do…) but gardening – and more simple life in general – forces you to plan ahead. Despite it being the middle of the summer (in the calendar, if not observably from the weather), I spent most of my gardening time over the weekend thinking about the late autumn, winter and next spring.

I planted on leeks, tended to my many, many winter squash, sowed spring cabbages & attempted my third batch of kale (the first lot got too hot, the second lot got too wet…). I also fretted slightly about where I’m going to plant my garlic when the time comes later in the year – I was hoping to have a good chunk of a bed for it but I’m not sure there will be room. Lack of decent bed space is one of the biggest problems with our garden but I don’t have the time to tend to both our garden and an allotment (if I could get one…) so I’m going to have to keep working around that. I’ve also got mental calendar notes for starting autumn-sowing cauliflower and over-winter lettuce.