This week’s meal plans: enter the wild garlic

Posted by louisa on Sunday 6 March 2011 in cooking, weekly meal plans | 0 comments

We ended up with more leftovers last week than I though – we got two dinners out of the risotto and two & a half from the kedgeree, so ended up shuffling things to get those used up. Four portions of curry went in the freezer too – homemade ready meals for the future – but I struggled to fit them in because we have a lot of previously frozen dinners in there – need to start working our way through them to keep them well rotated.

I’m delighted that the wild garlic in the woods is getting big enough to pick now – I hope it’ll feature quite a bit in our diet over the next couple of months (in salads if nothing else).

Sunday lunch – leftover pizza, mmm pizza
Sunday dinner – pasta with chorizo, wild garlic & pine nuts, with salad

Monday lunch – tomato & basil soup with bread
Monday dinner – spicy sausages & lentil casserole (will make enough for two dinners – second lot to be frozen)

Tuesday lunch – fish and chips if Strowger comes around :)
Tuesday dinner – pork chops with creamy mustard leeks and baked sweet potato

Wednesday lunch – bread and cheese & meat
Wednesday dinner – previously frozen keema & channa curry, with naan

Thursday lunch – egg mayo ploughmans lunch type thing
Thursday dinner – jerk chicken with rice&peas (or chips, if we’re feeling lazy) and salad

Friday lunch – leftover chicken with salad
Friday dinner – frittata

My first soap

Posted by louisa on Friday 4 March 2011 in Featured, making, soap, wood stuff | 8 comments

I made some soap for the first time last week. It took FOREVER to trace. I wrote a blog post about that but didn’t explain any more about my soap making because, well, frankly, at that point, it looked like it was going to be a big fat fail.

Even though it had reached what could be considered trace, it still felt very sloppy when I was pouring it into the moulds and even overnight and over the next night, it was harder but still very soft. The directions I’d read had said to take it out of the moulds after a couple of days – mine would have still blobbed all over the place at that point. But it clearly was still curing and it was more than ready to leave the moulds today – a week after it was made. (It was probably ready for tipping out by Wednesday – it was a lot paler and seemed like it would hold its shape – but I was just busy with other stuff so thought it would be better to leave it rather than rush it.)

I made two batches – I’ll post the recipes & cost breakdown once I know that it is actually a success and they’re good to use but for now, I’ll say the first was a 100% olive oil soap, and the second was a third olive oil and two-thirds other generic veg oils/shortening — everything bought from supermarkets. As I’ll explain more when I review the two soap-making books I bought, we’re pretty utilitarian when it comes to our soaps – we want them to get us clean, to not be harsh & drying, and to smell alright. We want them to create minimal waste & be as frugal as possible. This is particularly important for me while I’m learning the skills – if I make a mistake, it’s nothing more than a few quid and some time; if I was buying neem oil, shea butter and essential oils, I’d not only be paying more for the ingredients, I’d be paying for postage & packing too and having to wait for them to arrive too.

As expected, the 100% olive oil soap is considerably paler & already harder than the mixed oils one – the veg shortening keeps it that bit softer. Because I ended up making a lot more than I’d intended in one day, I had to get a bit more creative about the moulds than I thought I would at the start. The 100% soap used an old plastic fruit tray & an old deep oven tray as moulds.

The mixed oil one got the choicest mould – a long flat tray with a lid (from when we bought a big pack of ostrich burgers from the farmers market) – but its overflow containers weren’t as suitable really – one of the square olive oil bottles and an ice cream bucket. They were more awkward to use but have resulted in interesting shaped soaps.

Once I’d popped everything out and cut it to size, I thought “I’ll put this in the airing cupboard to keep curing and drying for the next few weeks”. Then I had a “doh!” moment – the airing cupboard got pulled out by our bathroom refitters on Monday! I hadn’t acted quick enough to keep the racks I’d made which would have been perfect as drying racks (I did though save the cupboard doors – one of which I used as a chopping board for the soap, and the others will make a raised bed). So anyway, I needed something to use for drying racks so yet again, I raided the scrap wood store and twenty minutes later:

A drying rack! It’s a very rough & ready job, done without any measuring hence the slats being a bit wonky, but it’ll do fine for this purpose.

Now the soap is on the new rack drying in the attic room. I guess I shouldn’t declare it a resounding success just yet until it’s finished and we can try it, but after a few days of foreboding failure, it looks a lot more hopeful now!

Buff’s first egg!

Posted by louisa on Friday 4 March 2011 in chickens | 1 comment

You know the other day when I was huffing and puffing about whether I thought Buff, our Leghorn chicken, was possibly a boy? Turns out all the worry was for nought. Look what I found in the nest box this morning:

(For those pedantic funny funny people: no, she didn’t lay the egg cup as well ;) )

As you can see from the diameter of the egg cup, it’s a thin one but about normal length – and very very white compared to the other brown ones. There was no mistaking it. (For the record, her big floppy comb was really quite red yesterday and paler today. I’ve noticed it fluctuating in the past as well so she’s possibly had a few false starts/shell-less ones that have gone unnoticed, although I have been looking closely.)

I think she might have had a bit of a hissy fit while it was coming out though – one of the other eggs in the nest box was broken completely and another had a hole in it — possibly an errant claw or possibly a peck. I’ll have to keep an eye on the situation but for now I’m just rejoicing – first white egg, weeee!

Saving as much as I spend

Posted by louisa on Thursday 3 March 2011 in frugal, low spend 11, personal finance | 0 comments

Following the 20 Financial Milestones for your 20s(ish) list I worked through at the start of February, I’ve started a new separate savings account for “saving-as-much-as-you-spend” thing.

I ummed and aahed about adding it to my normal savings account but I like the idea of starting its own dedicated account so I can really see it add up.

I’ve decided not to include all of my spending in the “to-save” pile – just the stuff that feels optional or a treat/luxury: books but not bus fare, meals eaten out but not food for meals cooked at home, pretty craft stuff but not pet supplies. My very own VAT ;)

From the whopping £242.52 which I spent in February, £137.16 was myVAT-able so that’s the opening amount for the new savings account.

I’m doing this for two reasons: firstly, I need to get back in the habit of saving money regularly again as during my lean-wage/self-employment over the last five years, my saving has been adhoc at best but more frequently, for long stretches, not at all – the savings I do have now date almost entirely from when I was employed. To start saving though, I’m going to have to free up some money from somewhere and that’s where the second reason comes in: I’m hoping it’ll help me reduce my consumption and make me more mindful about what I do spend. Those myVAT-able things now cost twice as much as far as my current account is concerned – I won’t (I WON’T) go into debt or start putting things on credit cards so they only way to live within my means will be to cut back. Of course, the theory only works because I know there is plenty of slack that I could cut back on without it particularly affecting my life for the worst – it will be interesting to see how it is in practise though.

Buff the Leghorn – what a difference in two months!

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 2 March 2011 in chickens | 0 comments

This was Buff, our Leghorn chicken, at the end of December:

This is her now:

I hadn’t noticed how much her combs & wattles had grown until I saw the first picture in Google Image search while looking for leghorn pics so see if they all get such a floppy ‘do. They were tiny back then!

As I’ve muttered/complained about a number of times now, Buff hasn’t started laying yet. She was supposed to be around POL when we got her in November, which puts her at about seven months now so she should be kicking them out. She’s supposed to lay white eggs and since the rest lay brown ones, I think we’ll notice when she does start laying. We do get some paler eggs (for example, we got one today which made the producer bwark so loudly that I heard it up here!) which could be hers if she’s not a pure leghorn, but if that’s the case, it’s strange that in all the days of getting six eggs (from a total of seven girls), we’ve not had a single day of seven.

Her floppy wattle (which would be a good name for a band) and comb are redder on some days than others, but she’s not displaying any other signs of even thinking about squeezing one out – she runs away when I go near her rather than dropping, and the only time I see her in the nest box is when I’ve grabbed her (for a health check/powdering) and she goes in there to hide & complain. She’s really flighty compared to the others and I accidentally, literally, scared the poop out of her the other day by appearing on the path behind the run behind where she was perched. Squawk! Poop! Ran to the other side of the run.

From pictures I’ve seen, her comb & wattle aren’t that abnormally large for a girl leghorn – but possibly not one as young as her. And it’s apparently not uncommon for some leghorns to hold it in until they’re nine months old or so – especially over winter. But I have this fear – which I’ve alluded to before – that she’s a girl-who-thinks-she’s-a-boy or actually a boy, but aside from paranoia and her slightly louder voice, I’ve not seen anything to suggest that. At a guess, she’s very near the bottom of the pecking order and I’ve not seen her try anything on with any of the girls — until recently, she’s been on the other side of the run from them at all time.

Perhaps her low status in the team is inhibiting her. Perhaps her flightiness means she’s too anxious to get down to it. Perhaps she’s decided that egg laying isn’t for her. I’ll keep an eye on her but any advice/suggestions would be gratefully received!