Desert Island Dinners: Lizzie’s choices

Posted by louisa on Friday 11 February 2011 in desert island dinners | 0 comments

Lizzie from Lizzie’s Home World is the next victim castaway for Desert Island Dinners.

A frugal/simple living version of “Desert Island Discs”, every week I pry into the culinary secrets of someone from frugal/simple living-osphere.

Here’s the full premise if you’ve missed it:

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 Lizzie‘s answers:

Herb/Spice At home top spices are cumin and coriander for a taste of the East, oregano and basil for when we are heading to the Med. Plus of course we love garlic and ginger. I would like to take all of these but if its down to one then it has to be crushed, dried chillies. We eat a lot of hot food and crushed chillies just add an extra bit of depth whenever it is used. I am assuming we would find plenty of vegetable options on our island and maybe eggs and meat, crushed chillies could just bring those tastes up a notch or two.

Gadget Although I do have a few gadgets like my rice cooker and garlic press I can manage most things with pans and a knife. For crushing coriander and other spices then I would need my pestle & mortar but if I am without my spices then it doesn’t have a use. Living in Greece for few years, in one room as we were really just travellers, i learnt to go without most equipment. I can drain pans without sieve or colander, i can crush garlic with a knife or if it needs to be really creamy then using the bottle of a wine bottle and a saucer. If I have a knife already I am opting for sharpener. All food is going to be cooked from scratch, of the first catch your rabbit variety, so my knife needs to be real sharp.

Cookbook Most ingredients wont be available to me so anything too indulgent would be a waste. I think it would have to be something from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (aka, Hugh Fearlessly Eat it all) as he would know how to deal with anything. I am going with Hugh’s River Cottage Meat Book.

Seeds Opting for oregano here as its job will be to potentially bring flavour to a lot of unfamiliar ingredients. I went through all sorts of options but everything I wanted was too complex like raspberry canes, onion set, seed potatoes. I have decided to stay simple and make it manageable.

Skill My main skill would be ability to deal with adversity without being unhappy. I have knife skills and mostly cook from scratch anyway. I have sewing skills (of the patch a clothes rip variety not couture level). I can make do and mend but I am betting the most useful skill is my ability to be happy and still smiling when things get bad.

Very enjoyable half an hour immersed in life on my desert island. Thank you .

No, no, thank you Lizzie! Some great answers as always – I’m a big fan of crushed dried chillis too (they pop up in most of my spicy recipes) because they’re not as prone to going off as fresh chillis and don’t go stale as quickly as chilli powder. I’ve never read anything by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (or seen him on TV) but I hear lots of positive things about the various River Cottage books so I guess I should look out for them! I love Lizzie’s skill choice too – dealing with adversity without getting down is a wonderful skill indeed.

Thanks again for answering the questions, Lizzie. Anyone else want to be castaway?

Toothless Thursday

Posted by louisa on Thursday 10 February 2011 in meta | 1 comment

Everyone else does “Wordless Wednesday” photos. Thanks to my old man, Mr Boron, I’m doing a “Toothless Thursday”.

It’s lovely in the garden today – sunny and still. I stood amongst the bare beds thinking about where everything will go this year. My to-make list grew longer with plans.

20 Financial Milestones to Reach in Your 20s (ish)

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 9 February 2011 in personal finance | 1 comment

A list of “20 Financial Milestones You Want to Reach in Your 20′s” has been circulating around many Generation-Y-ish personal finance blogs recently. I’m not quite in my 20s any more – I’m 31 – but it feels more like a stage of life thing (no kids, first steps on property ladder, student debts etc) rather than an exact age, so it would be interesting to see how I’ve done.

(The original list is from the USA but I’ve UK-ised it a bit to make it more relevant – but stuck to similar sentiments. The bits in italics are explanations from the original list.)

# 1 – Finance a dream vacation…in cash – done
We went to Russia in 2005 when we were 26 – somewhere I’d always wanted to go. We had a week split between two of the top hotels in central Moscow & St Petersburg, with a night in a first class sleeper inbetween. It was lovely, expensive but lovely.

We paid for the hotels & our flights on credit cards for security reasons but they were paid off in full the same month so I guess that was paid for “in cash”.

All our other holidays in our 20s – mostly city breaks around Europe or weeks in shabby-chic cottages on the coast – were actually paid for in cash or the same credit-card-then-immediate-pay-off arrangement. They were all dreamy :)

# 2 – Pay off your student loans – done
I came out of university with about £8,000 in debt – £1250 in an interest-free (for two years) overdraft, the rest as actual student loans. I paid off my overdraft within two years of graduating and finished paying off my student loans in the March before my 30th birthday. (I could have deferred payment after my salary dropped when I became self-employed at 26 but decided to keep paying.)

# 3 – Automate paying your credit card bill in full – done
Yes, but only when I was about 28. Before then, I only paid off the minimum automatically so, in theory, I could manage my cashflow better in lean months but I pretty much paid it off in full every month anyway so finally fully automated it.

# 4 – Get rid of all bad debt – done
A good way to see what bad debt and good debt is is by asking yourself if the underlying asset appreciates or depreciates in value. If the asset appreciates, like a house, than categorize it as good debt. If the asset depreciates, like a car, etc… then it’s bad debt.

The only debts I had were my student overdraft/loans and my mortgage. I’ve still got the mortgage but at the moment, that’s not “bad debt”.

Things from yesterday and today

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 8 February 2011 in growing, meta | 3 comments

I started my potatoes chitting yesterday. Well, they’d already started chitting all by themselves but I took them out of their nets and put them in egg boxes. Now to remember which is which…

Today is the first time in about a week when it’s not been blowing a gale so I’m tempted to spend the afternoon away from my computer and sow some seeds. Weee!

I collected six eggs this morning – we usually get five max. Being realistic, I think it was probably just a late one from yesterday and today’s five – but one was a little small, so maybe Lime’s coming out of moult.

(Buff has yet to provide us with a single egg (she’ll lay white ones, the rest lay light to mid brown ones so it’ll be clear when she does get around to it) and is getting noisier. From what I’ve read, it’s not uncommon for Leghorns to be late starters, and I guess winter will exacerbate that, but I’m worried she thinks she is a boy – or actually is a boy. Nothing obvious yet but *paranoia*.)

Our meal planning made it to Day Two before failing completely. Yay us. There is a reason though – we had both completely forgotten that John’s attending a talk in Manchester tonight so not only will be out for dinner but will need more substance at lunchtime than soup will provide (he’s unlikely to be eating dinner until after 9pm). And also half his company came for lunch today either en route to the talk or just because there was mention of fish and chips and everyone loves fish and chips. I will probably still end up making the sausage & lentil casserole because the sausages will go off otherwise, but I’ll freeze tonight’s portion instead.

I made the spicy butternut squash soup before we realised the change of plans so I’ll have that for dinner tonight. I made approximately 3litres of it. I might freeze some of that too ;)

A book on vegetable-oil soap making that I’d been umming and aahing about buying for ages arrived this morning – can’t wait to give that a go.

Some embroidery fabric (bought on eBay) also arrived so I can start on my next big stitchery project. Going to wait until I’ve finished the blanket (which is now wide enough to keep me warm while I’m crocheting it :) ) rather than get distracted but I’m working on my pattern. It’s going to be an evolving piece actually – it’ll never be finished-finished – which makes planning interesting!

We shaved & bathed the dog last night. (Not a euphemism.) She feels like silky velvet at the moment and while it’s not a perfect job, it’s certainly passable. It would have cost us at least £45 if we’d paid someone else to do it. She slept through all the clipping and got an egg afterwards for being a good girl.

There has been a few clumps of small brown mushrooms growing on the garden steps (covered with wood chippings) recently and I picked one to identify yesterday. It looks very much like a Deceiver (Laccaria Laccata) but it seems far too late in the year/early in the next one to be those. I will keep looking through my books to see what else it might be but any other suggestions would be gratefully received :)

What have you guys been up to?

12 in 11 clothing challenge: savings jar motivator

Posted by louisa on Monday 7 February 2011 in anti-consumerism, less than 12 clothes challenge | 1 comment

Taphophile has come up with a great idea for staying motivated during the “12 in 11” clothes challenge.

An artificial limiting-yourself challenge like this can feel like self-denial for the sake of it, which isn’t exactly a good motivator — but Taph has decided to flip that on its head.

How do I keep motivated and show results? While the seven things challenge is partially about reduction, there is a cumulative total that helps measure progress. It is the external indicator of inward progress.

Enter the “savings” jar. Each time I overcome the temptation to buy clothing which pre-challenge would have come home, the value of the item goes into a jar. This creates a visual reminder of progress and ensures there will be cash on hand when the perfect garment appears or to pay for repairs I can’t make myself or buy materials to transform already owned garments (there are some tops and shoes which need dying).
Unravelled: This challenge is, well, challenging

As I say in her comments, I’ve been avoiding looking at things to avoid temptation but if I do struggle over something in the future and decide against it, I’m going to start a savings jar like that — I might use the proceeds to fund an expensive, good quality item that’ll last, something I’d find it difficult to spend so much money on in normal circumstances.

It’s a similar to what I’ve done for funding our automatic chicken pophole door at Alice‘s suggestion – amongst its other advantages, the automatic door lets me sleep in late, which I like, and I’m paying for it in retrospect by consciously denying myself other little treats which I like (eg random chocolate bars/cans of pop) when I get a random, passing craving. Admittedly I’ve only got about £10 in my fund for that because I’ve got out of the habit of even wanting that stuff most of the time but it’s a start :)

Anyone got any other motivation tips?

Meal planning: our lunches & dinners this week

Posted by louisa on Monday 7 February 2011 in cooking, eating, frugal, weekly meal plans | 6 comments

We’re not very good a meal planning. We usually manage it for the three or four days following our monthly big trip to the supermarket. I know they’re a really good idea – saving money, reducing food waste etc – but we’re quite quite rubbish at anything that involves personal organisation.

Often we’ll not even think about what we want for dinner until it’s already 8pm and we’re both blood-sugar crashing. When that happens we’re more likely to turn to ordering take-in or running to the (nearby, expensive) shop for something quick – which invariably means buying something junky for dinner and spending extra money because we’re hungry and everything looks sooooo good.

Our lunches are the same – we usually don’t think about them until we need to eat and they have to be ready quickly so we can take the dog out and get back to work in good time. Lunches are a lot cheaper for us now we both work from home than they were when we were similar disorganised and worked in offices – but they rely on what we’ve got in or another trip to the expensive shop. And I think they generate the bulk of our food waste – loaves bought in or made for lunches and not finished before they go stale etc.

So here we go – my first attempt at a week’s meal plan:

Monday lunch – boiled eggs & toast (I had food poisoning or a tummy bug over the weekend and am still feeling a little delicate. This is our favourite poorly tummy food)
Monday dinner – pasta with herby sausages & peppers in a tomato sauce

Tuesday lunch – spicy butternut squash soup (to be made this evening) with bread (which will need buying/making), & cheese
Tuesday dinner – spicy sausage & lentil casserole (the last of the sausages that need using up) with veg

Wednesday lunch – more spicy butternut squash soup with bread & cheese
Wednesday dinner – a difficult meal slot as I’m out until 10pm – keema achar curry (made by John last week, now in the freezer) either with rice or chapattis & naan (depending if he can be bothered making them fresh)

Thursday lunch – John will probably be out so probably just more soup & bread for me
Thursday dinner – leftover sausage & lentil casserole and veg (will need to buy something green)

Friday lunch – our random version of a ploughman’s lunch with samosas (from the petrol station … yes! I know! but strangely they’re some of the best samosas we’ve ever eaten and only 60p each!) and pickles
Friday dinner – homemade pizza – tuna & chilli, and chorizo & peppers (need to buy mozzarella)

Saturday brunch – scrambled eggs & muffins/crumpets (to buy, whichever are on offer)
Saturday dinner – spicy marinaded chicken pieces (need to buy the chicken) & rice

Right, let’s see how much we stick to it!

Su’s Desert Island Dinners

Posted by louisa on Thursday 3 February 2011 in desert island dinners | 0 comments

Last week, I started a fun new thing – Desert Island Dinners. It’s basically Desert Island Discs but with a frugal/simple living theme instead of music.

After Kate from Living the Frugal Life last week, I asked frequent commenter Su to be next up for deportation…!

Here’s the premise again:

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?

Su replied:

Herb/spice – since I’m not overly fond of most herbs, I really wouldn’t miss them. Most of what I cook can’t contain garlic as daughter has a reaction to it, so I know that I can cope without that and just one spice, wouldn’t be enough for me. But, black pepper goes into and onto virtually everything I cook, so I really would miss that. I could crush it between two stones so peppercorns would be best.

Gadget/tool/utensil – this was for me the hardest to choose. A knife without a sharpener is useless, but that’s two objects. I did consider something in which to carry/ store fresh drinking water, but thought that I may be able to find something suitable on the beach (you’d think I was actually there, the way I am carrying on!). I also considered my haybox cooker, but that needs the appropriate pan to go into it, so again that’s two items. In the end, in a flash of inspiration, I decided on some method of lighting a fire, probably a lighter as they a a little less temperamental than matches. I don’t think my survival skills will stretch to striking stones together or rubbing sticks, but of course, you can’t cook anything without a flame.

Seeds – I think this would have to be tomato, so versatile, and in the hot climate of my desert island should grow well. I’m not going anywhere if it’s cold !

Cookbook – Very boringly this would have to be my rather dog eared copy of Delia’s complete cookery course. It’s the book I use most, generally for checking things, I don’t tend to follow complete recipes but checking of basic facts ( how long, what temperature etc, etc).

Skill – This would have to be my general ‘Blue Peterishness’ (not that that’s a word), I think I’m pretty good at cobbling stuff together and I’m sure it would be very useful!

All this thinking though, made me realise that actually, I wouldn’t be very good on a desert island. I could cope with the isolation and not having much in the way of luxury and general everyday trials and tribulations, but I’d never manage without my bed and tea!

Big thanks to Su for answering – especially as I know she has limited access to email. She also said “Well, I have thought about little else since [you asked], I’m not sure all this mental exercise is good for me!” — I hope it doesn’t clog up your brain for too long, Su!

With Su’s suggestions of black pepper, flame, tomatoes & a good reference book – and Kate’s garlic, a good knife, versatile kale & baking books – I’m really hoping that one of them gets to pack for me if I do end up being castaway!

If anyone else wants to play – please get in touch :)