Looking at the rubbish generated from todays cooking marathon

I like to look at what waste there is from my cooking and I know I've posted on here an evening meal and detailed what was left in terms of packaging. So lets look at todays tally to see how I did ( please note I'm thinking about this as I type so I don't know yet how I've done)

Soup and Veggie stew ( since they contained similar ingredients)

Courgettes/marrows- homegrown; no packaging
Onions,garlic and chili - homegrown; no packaging
Passata - in glass bottle so recycled
Carrots and green peppers - from farm shop so small amount of plastic bag; recycled
Mushrooms - farm shop in a paper bag; composted
Mixed beans - Infinity food bulk order in tins; recycled
All peelings composted.
So no waste there

Cakes ( choc and lemon drizzle fairy cakes)

Margarine - plastic tub; washed out and will be reused for Tim to take small amounts of stews etc lunch
Eggs - own hens so no packaging
Sugar - bulk buy from Infinity; clean small plastic bag so recycled
Flour - farm shop in paper bag; composted
Cocoa for choc cake - bulk buy from Infinity and in paper bag which is composted and the powder decanted in to a jar for kitchen usage
Lemons for drizzle cakes - from farm shop; packaging avoided as they don't need to be in a bag particularly.
Paper liners for tin - will have to bin these once the cakes are eaten as they contain cooked waste and won't compost (although I'm wondering if its ok to give them to the wormery?)
Lemon skins and egg shells composted

So only the paper cake liners likely to be binned - not a bad result at all.

I really think the act of thinking about what we eat perhaps by looking at the main meal of the day or similar is a good way of thinking about our rubbish generation and working on ways to reduce it

Today's kitchen marathon

Needed to Do Something about this lot in the kitchen. Butternut squashes, pumpkins and of course marrows. There was also a bit of an egg glut to tackle so I planned a big cooking day in the kitchen to start to sort this out. These vegetables usually store well but its easy to forget them or if we have a mild winter then they don't keep as long anyways.

First I made up a soup with tomato passata as the base, lots of diced marrow, garlic and a couple of finely chopped chillies. That's it simmering away in the preserving pan at the back.it made 5pints all told.

In the other saucepan is a veggie stew mix. Also with courgettes in it plus onion, carrot, green pepper, mushrooms and a couple of tins of mixed beans. This didn't need as long a cook. This yielded enough to make the bases for two veggie crumbles. The mix has been put in to foil dishes and will be topped with a cheese crumble mix and then frozen for a simple just put it in the oven and go do something else sort of tea.And then there is the egg glut. I first made a large choc cake which I didn't photograph, and then tried a little experiment. One of my favourite cakes is a lemon drizzle so I wondered what would happen if I made the same mix but baked them as fairy cakes. I doubled the mix and made 3 doz little lemony cakes which had the traditional topping of lemon juice and sugar spooned on to them as they came out of the oven. A wholly successful experiment! Little mouthfuls of lemonyness!


So a great haul from the kitchen today and the marrow mountain in particular is going down!

Measuring Socks

Named by Sally from Downsizer (and she wrote the pattern so she should know) as the Ninja Sock of Death maneuver; I'm trying on the sock for size as I knit down the foot. About an inch more I think and then its toe shaping time!

Measuring Success

A twitterer flagged up this blog post http://shezking.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/what-is-success-part-1/ and its an inspirational read.

I especially liked the Emerson quote -“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know that even one life has breathed easier because YOU have lived – that is to have succeeded.” Emerson

That is worth musing on....

It must be hard work?

A lovely quote ( a tweet actually) from a kind lady I follow has got me thinking. In response to me mentioning we are bee-keepers she put the following OMG! How wonderful. I did go and read your profile and most intriguing too. What a wonderful life. Hard work I am sure x

Its a common myth I think that growing your own is 'hard work' ditto bees and chickens. Yes there are some Saturdays of hard digging but that's preferable to an hour 3 times a week on a treadmill in a gym and the fresh air is nicer, frankly. There is always something to do certainly but we thrive on that, as well as the plot, bees and chickens there is baking and processing of harvests to do plus crafts, sewing and knitting to keep me entertained personally. My knitting has gone up a level since I went to the downsizer fibre weekend and I can now knit a sock so I'm looking forward to dark winter evenings when its nice to snuggle up and make something. Its all a learning curve which is what drives me and keeps me wanting to live like this. But its not hard work, not as I see it.

In some ways I often feel I'm being lazy because I don't work outside the home so 1) I don't earn and 2) can have 'days off' if I choose. The flexibility is in part because there is rarely something that has to be done right this minute. I ought to have scythed the plot paths this week but I'm stuck at home with a shocking cold and have had eldest laid at home with it as well. The paths will wait. I've finished off the ends of 2 knitted dishcloths and a scarf and completed knitting a second scarf instead so not idle as such but rested and hopefully feeling better soon.

Looking at the other part of the quote; I was flattered and sometimes its a good wake-up call to be seen from outside - we are sometimes too busy being 'us' to look outside to see how others see things or worse imagine that others see us one way when that's not how we're seen at all.

I suppose the other important aspect is the multidimensional aspect of being Me! I can't be defined in one word ( I'm taking that as a good thing but I can see from others perspective that it might not be seen as such - it does add a layer of complication to introductions) and I'm going to try and list it all here - I'm a mum, wife, daughter, sister, friend, relation, OU student, allotmenteer, bee-keeper, chicken keeper, Downsizer, druid, blogger/writer, pilates 'student', passionate about doing our bit for the environment and Oxfam volunteer. I also love cooking, baking and preserving, sewing, knitting and other crafts ( note often given to self; You Do Not Need Another Hobby) I like country walks and photography, roaring log fires and jigsaw puzzles. I read lots of magazines and can't resist books in general. I love all sorts of music and am fond of my ipod which has an eclectic mix of stuff on there. I can 'present' and am the announcer at the school fete and would like to develop that part of me - shall we do podcasts do you think?. I'm quite techy and am in to social media like Twitter and Blip.fm and am interested in the development of web2.0 I love learning new stuff, am open-minded and will join in with your enthusiasm for what ever you're in to. I would never wish to just be defined by my 'job', I always wish to be and importantly do more than that -don't you?

It comes back I suppose to my concept of Authentic living; its about being a multidimensional human not just some cog in a giant wheel that is not of our own making. Retaining control and enthusiasm for living, learning and evolving. A free range mum not a battery 'something' or other. I'm not saying its right for everyone but I get deep satisfaction about all that we do from having toasted homemade bread with our honey on it, to making a meal out of homegrown ingredients to being able to avoid the supermarket to making my own socks. Its not hard work to feel satisfied with life and all that we achieve. (coming home from work via the supermarket to a readymeal in front of the telly; now that is hard work to me)

So it is a fascinating life and I'm so pleased to be living it :-) !

don't forget the bees

I've just updated the bee blog -http://longworthbees.blogspot.com/2008/09/allotment-holders-take-bees-to-their.html

Downsizer Fibre Weekend

Fab weekend again at the farm in Camarthen. This time the emphasis was on fibre. By that we mean wool. It was a mostly girly weekend since we made felt, carded and spun fleece, pegloomed, dyed and knitted.

The above photo shows the lovely jolly things that we made in Sallys felting workshop. Mini bags and pointy hats
There were at least 6 spinning wheels in operation. Claire is concentrating on hers and I'm in the background in the navy top being shown how to turn the heel as I learnt to knit my first ever sock.
This is peg looming using raw fleece. It will wash up in to a hard wearing and cosy rug.

Once more we slept in the Swallow barn and you can see what a peaceful place it was.

We ate well again with the men folk doing most of the cooking. There was a particularly notable feast on the Saturday night with a chilli, vegetable rice, pork stirfry, mongolian lamb and chickpea curry and a salt cod fish pie to choose from ( that in particular was comfort food of the highest order) We also made our own pizzas using the wood fired bread oven again.

The weather was wet; in fact it was very wet and a landrover slid down a field in to a ditch and the men folk had to spend a fair bit of time rescuing it. You can see a video of the tractor pulling it out here http://fiddlestickstv.blogspot.com/2008/09/prerequisites-for-gervases-fencing.html they needed a team bonding challenge and how nice of Gervase to provide one and conduct a master class in fencing the next day to repair what the landrover had taken away. They should have stuck to knitting frankly shouldn't they?

Once again it was a study in communal living and we ate well, gossiped and learnt. A lovely weekend and we've all come home with something we've made and in some cases started a new hobby, which was very satisfying as you can imagine

To the next weekend planned - soap and corset making!! Can't wait! ;-)

Lemon Drizzles

Posted with LifeCast

Making Lemon Drizzle Cake

We're off on a downsized skill weekend again so of course a large cake is required

Posted with LifeCast

Trying Out Lifecast

Posted with LifeCast