This week’s meal plan

Posted by louisa on Monday 21 February 2011 in cooking, weekly meal plans | 3 comments

We’re getting a bit better at sticking to meal plans – not great, but better. A couple of shuffles last week but again, it’s generally wonderful to know what’s in the offing.

Sunday dinner – Pasta with John’s special pasta sauce (frozen leftovers from a previous batch) and salad

Monday lunch – some veg things John bought while I wasn’t there so don’t know what they are, with bread
Monday dinner – Spanish omelette (possibly with sweet potato, pepper & chorizo)

Tuesday lunch – hopefully not fish and chips but I get *bullied* into it every week when Strowger comes to visit. I blame him totally. I don’t even like fish and chips. And especially not curry sauce. Mmm curry sauce – I mean, urgh, curry sauce.
Tuesday dinner – pork chops with a mustard & chilli glaze with green beans & carrots

Wednesday lunch – ham/cheese sandwiches
Wednesday dinner – (I’m in for once – half term) egg fried rice (possibly with mushrooms, possibly other stuff)

Thursday lunch – bread, meat & salad/pickles
Thursday dinner – pasta with tuna, olives & chillis (since that was one of the things we swapped out last week)

Friday lunch – samosas & misc bits
Friday dinner – burgers with salad (the other thing we swapped out last week)

Portable chicken run from scrap wood & wire

Posted by louisa on Friday 18 February 2011 in chickens, making, wood stuff | 6 comments

I was in a bit of a sulk this morning. My weekends – now that the weather is getting better – usually involve playing out in the garden, or at least cooking up treats in the kitchen but this weekend, I’m out all day, both days, at a youth theatre event with the group I help teach. The event should be fun but, you know, not playing in the garden or making sugar-packed goodies. So I was sulking about losing my play time – until I realised there was nothing stopping me playing out this afternoon instead. Even after five years of self-employment, I still feel naughty playing out during a workday – but as soon as I realised I could, I was up and running for the box of screws and our scrap wood supplies.

I find it funny that I get so excited about making things from wood these days because a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of doing it. I’m quite a practical girl – I worked as a labourer one summer during uni and I’m happy to get my hands/clothes/face dirty with paint or mud or what-have-you – but I always thought that making things from wood was a Big Serious Skill that wasn’t for my sort. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was because we didn’t really do any big woodwork stuff at school – we did stuff on “resistant materials” (which included bits of woodwork as well as electronics and stuff with plastic/metal) and I remember making little bits of jewellery out of wood and plastic – but it was little things, nothing practical.

I think I started to get converted after we moved into this house just over a year ago – I wanted some airing shelves inside the boiler cupboard so I went over to the DIY shop across the road, bought some 38mm by 19mm lengths, and made them. I think I did a pretty good job – I made them easily removable in case we needed better access to the boiler and they’ve not fallen down yet. Then I decided I wanted a wellie stand for outside and after getting some advice from a friend who is handy with a saw & screws and a scramble around our scrap wood store, we had a shiny new wellie station in a couple of hours. And that’s when the addiction started. I’m not great at it by any means but every time I make something, I learn something new and have tons o’fun :)

Anyway, this afternoon’s project was a portable chicken run so I could let the chickens out of their main run more. I was inspired by Kate from Living the Frugal Life‘s poultry schooner – it would let me use the chickens to weed and de-slug the veg beds but wouldn’t need me watching over them the whole time (or chasing them around the woods when they got the taste of freedom). I wanted to do a hoophouse thing like Kate’s but didn’t have any material to make the hoops – so I ended up making a boring wood frame instead. At least it was all the boring wood was scrap so free though :)

I made the ends first and was a little surprised by how sturdy they were ;)

The sturdiness was beneficial as the only long lengths I could find were lighter than desirable – but with the sturdy end frames and some supporting struts in the middle, it still felt strong enough. So far, so good.

On my mind – unusual spaces, seeds & no kindling

Posted by louisa on Thursday 17 February 2011 in growing | 8 comments

Rhonda on Down To Earth has a weekly “on my mind” photo feature – an illustration about what we’re all thinking about today. She’s been thinking about handmade, handstitched linens today, I’ve been thinking about …

strange spaces in the garden, epitomised by this ledge behind the greenhouse. I want to increase the amount of things we grow in the garden, which means using all our space as efficiently as possible. This space is small but gets good sun – I could put herb pots on there or make a trough/window box to fit there instead. It wouldn’t be very accessible for picking things from it in the summer though – but I’d like some flowers in the garden to attract bees so maybe this is a good place for them.

I’ve been thinking about this today because this box is praying on my mind –

It’s sorted in planting order but I haven’t decided where everything is going yet or started preparing the beds…

Away from growing, I’ve also been thinking about our empty kindling boxes.

It’s my job to keep them filled them up but I’ve been slack of late… Must make time to refill them tomorrow!

Check out my proper whopper of a propa(gator)! ;)

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 16 February 2011 in growing | 7 comments

Yesterday I got a bit over-excited on Twitter because my heated propagator arrived.

I’d been thinking about getting on for a while but Fiona, the Cottage Smallholder, gave me the final push at the weekend. I got one on eBay on Saturday for £19.99 + £3.95p&p – and was quite surprised how quickly it arrived.

I was also rather surprised at the size – I had chosen one that looked a bit bigger than standard because it didn’t cost that much more and I had a feeling I’d appreciate the extra space – but it turns out that 52cm by 42cm is really pretty big! Thankfully it fits quite neatly onto the shelf in our porch – and conveniently right next to an electric socket too. One of the reasons I was resisting was a worry about the running cost. The heating element in this one is 18W, which, if my calculations are correct, will cost us 3.4p a day to run – I imagine I’ll run it for a week or so at a time, for a few months so not too much overall.

This morning I filled it with its first batch of seeds to nurse – plugs of tomatoes, chillis & cucumbers. (I told myself that I wouldn’t use plugs this year because it means more work but apparently I’m not very good at sticking to my word. The pots are more tomatoes that I sowed the other day, before I’d done a u-turn on my no-plugs rule.) I’m looking forward to seeing them get started.

It was nice to be preparing the plugs in the greenhouse – the sun had been on it for a couple of hours so it was pleasantly warm. Carla-cat followed me inside and stretched out on the warm aluminium staging for the duration. While I was in there, I also started some broad beans in pots – the end of my bought packet & some saved seeds from last year. Possibly a little early but we’ll see.

My 20 year old socks and other long-time-service clothing

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 15 February 2011 in anti-consumerism, frugal | 5 comments

Yesterday, Ilona on Life After Money was talking getting her money’s worth out of things – and referred to some really old underpants she owns. It got me thinking about my elderly underwear.

I have some knickers I bought when I first started going out with John. We’ve been together for nearly nine years. I bought a pair of knickers with a penguin on it and another pair with a cat – the penguin ones are a little scruffy but the cat ones are still almost my favourite pants and are still in regular circulation – worn probably about once a fortnight and still going strong.

Elsewhere in my underwear drawer, I’ve got some slipper socks from my mid-teens (about 15 years ago – someone dropped a BNWT pair in my mum’s shop and after sitting in their lost-and-found box for a while, I was the lucky recipient of them) and a pair of novelty socks that my childhood neighbour/friend Katie bought me one Christmas. I can’t remember what year it was exactly when she bought them for me but I suspect it was when we were about 11 or 12 (19/20 years ago). They’re getting a little bobbly and threadbare on the heel now but still wearable – and still worn regularly. I’ve never worked out what sort of animal is ice skating though – a brown penguin? a bear?

Most of my visible wardrobe is newer – because of changing styles (I’m not exactly a fashionista but my style has definitely evolved over the last couple of decades – shell suits were in style when Katie bought me those socks!) and because of changing body size – but I still wear a black wool cardigan I bought when I was 16 (and a UK size 8) even though I’m now 31 and … um, not a size 8 by any measure! I’ve also got a tiny sundress I bought the week of my 18th birthday which I still wear – it’s bias cut so stretchy so works as a long top for underneath a jumper.

All but three of John’s jumpers pre-date our relationship and he’s got some t-shirts from when he was about 14 or 15 – including one that feels like silk now, it’s been washed that much!

Do you have any clothes in regular circulation that are due a long-term service award?

Fruit bushes finally in the ground

Posted by louisa on Monday 14 February 2011 in growing | 4 comments

I spent what felt like all Saturday but was actually just four hours in the garden – it seems I’ve lost some stamina over the winter! It was hard work and I ached in the evening but I finally got all our fruit bushes in the ground. Well, fruit sticks which will hopefully one day become bushes. These are, respectively, one of the raspberries (Tulameen) and one of the redcurrants (Jonkheer Van Tets) that I bought as part of a super-cheap deal from Aldi last week.

The four blackcurrants look a little more alive – not just bare sticks — probably a sign I should have planted them out a few weeks ago…

I had two pairs of blackcurrant bushes – two from the Aldi batch, two from elsewhere – and there was a very clear difference between the two — even though the other ones were still cheap, their roots looked a lot more established. I guess I’ll have to see if that makes a difference in the long run. (For my future reference, they’re planted Ben Nevis, Ben Lomond, Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis – with the Ben Lomonds from Aldi.)

I also *finally* potted on the lingonberry (Ida) and cranberry (Pilgrim) bushes that arrived in the middle of the snow a month ago.

They were in ok-sized pots anyway so I just left them as they were in the greenhouse while it was cold outside. Now they’ve finally got room to stretch.

So that’s eight fruit bushes in the ground, and two in containers. Fruit-wise, we’ve also got eight trees planted this year, with a spot prepared for my cherry tree (which will hopefully arrive soon), and my strawberry runners seem to be going ok too. I think that’ll be all the fruit we’ll go with this year – now to concentrate on veg!

What fruit are you growing this year? Any new additions to the garden/plot?

Meal planning: this week’s menu

Posted by louisa on Sunday 13 February 2011 in cooking, weekly meal plans | 3 comments

Ok, last week – our first attempt at sticking to a meal plan – was a bit of a failure. It went up in flames on day TWO. We’d forgotten John was going out in the afternoon/evening for a talk so had to change lunch to make it more filling (and some people came for lunch too), and I worked late and forgot I was supposed to make the casserole anyway (John ate the sausages for breakfasts instead). Aside from that though (and having to find something else on Thursday, which was supposed to be leftover casserole day), we stuck to it and it worked well — I knew on Friday afternoon that I’d have to take a break mid-afternoon to start the pizza dough rather than waiting to start until the evening, and it had plenty of time to rise beautifully.

Here is our plan for this week – and hopefully there won’t be any unexpected events!

Sunday brunch – bacon butties, mmm bacon
Sunday dinner – courgette & chorizo frittata, with salad

Monday lunch – falafel in pittas with raita (made with leftover yoghurt), with salad leftover chicken from Saturday night, with rice
Monday dinner – fry up (leftover bacon, mushrooms, hash browns, beans, & eggs – breakfast for dinner ;) )

Tuesday lunch – sigh, I’m going to just accept it – fish and chips probably; if not, something with hard boiled eggs as we’ve some older ones to use up
Tuesday dinner – chicken & bean enchiladas, with salad

Wednesday lunch – bread with a selection of cheese, meat & pickles (our default lunch option)
Wednesday dinner – (I’m out until 10pm) leftover enchiladas, with salad

Thursday lunch – John will probably be out; I’ll have the same as Wednesday
Thursday dinner – pasta with tuna, olives, chillis & parmesan

Friday lunch – something with eggs – scrambled eggs with chorizo? boiled eggs? tbc!
Friday dinner – burgers with salad

(Not planning for Saturday & Sunday this week as I’m out all day both days; I imagine John will have eggs for brunch then possibly go out or get take out later in the day.)