Islay finds, makes and bakes...

Home sweet home

Coming home after camping is very nice. The kettle boils so quickly, shower is so showery, everything is clean and easy and nice. I love camping a lot, but I also love coming home and having all my creature comforts again. Makes you realise how much we take for granted.

I have a couple more recipes to post (I meant to post them before going away, but it turned out that I was little over optimistic regarding my car-packing-while-watching-the-baby-and-cooking-two-fruit-loaves efficiency), which I'll pop up later on.

Preserving equipment and glossary

Sorry for just sticking this in randomly, but I've had it hanging around my drafts folder for a while, so I've finally neatened it up and posted it.

I realised I was writing the same things over and over again when I was posting preserving instructions, so I thought I'd make this little glossary, which I can then link to every time I post a recipe, to save those that know having to read through the same thing every time, and to put all the information in one place for those of us that still need a reminder.

Equipment
Jars - I particularly like Le Parfait jars, because they come in lots of sizes, look nice and stack quite well. However, mostly I use whatever we have available - we save every single glass jar that comes into the house, and have a nice little selection in the cellar. For the first time this year I bought some new Le Parfait jars (normally I pick them up whenever I see them at boot fairs or charity shops, and that was enough, but I just needed more now that we're doing serious amounts of preserving). I got mine from Ebay, and got a massive batch of half litre ones for around £2 per jar (you can get other jars cheaper, but I think the Le Parfait ones are really good, although I might look for even cheaper ones for smaller jars for gifting).
Pan - you don't need a special preserving pan, but if you're planning on doing a lot, it's probably worth it. They have a large base so it's easy to keep the contents at a rolling boil, high sides so everything doesn't bubble straight out, and a handle that can either go to the side or be fixed in an upright position. Decent ones (mine isn't) have a spout and side handle for easy pouring. Old ones (mine is) are usually made of aluminium, which you may prefer to avoid (various health scares, but mostly linked with using aluminium pans on a daily basis, and using metal utensils in them, as far as I can work out), and newer ones are usually made of stainless steel. I slightly covet a copper preserving pan, which some people say makes the best jam, but in the absence of a spare £140, I'll stick with my alzheimers-inducing aluminium one for now.
Jam thermometer - not at all essential for jam - it's easy to tell whether it's reached setting point by using the cold plate method described below, and if you don't boil it for ages, you're unlikely to burn the sugar - but it can be useful for other things, and it can save your jam from turning into semi-toffee if you're prone to over-cooking it (I am). I have thisone.
Nylon sieve - Apparently metal sieves can taint some jellies and things, and I find my nylon one
a lot easier to clean than a double layer metal one.

Glossary
Sterilising jars - you need to sterilise all jars and bottles you use for preserves. It's simple - you need to heat your containers to 100 degrees C for long enough to kill any nasties. I tend to pop them in a cold oven at the start of the jam making process, turn it on to 125 degrees C, once it's preheated time for 10 minutes, and turn it off again (disclaimer: there may be better advice out there, this is just what I do). Remember to wash jars thoroughly before sterilising, and to sterilise lids and any jug, ladle or jam funnel that you might use for decanting into the jars. I used to be a bit slack about sterilising, but it's such a pain when you go back to your preserve three months later and find a little carpet of fur over it. It's worth taking the time to do it properly, and your preserves should then last as long as possible (almost indefinitely, in the case of some jams and chutneys, if the recently opened jars of 2007 damson jam at my mother's were anything to go by).
Tester plate - in order to be able to test whether jam has reached its setting point, you need to cool it down and then see if it's formed a skin. The best way to do this is to pop a small side plate in the freezer

Ummm.... I think that's all, but if I remember anything else, I'll add it to this post, and I'll link here in all future preserving recipes.

I'm trying not to think about this (one for girls, really)

I have officially become a hippy-dippy-eco-worrying-lentil-eating weirdo. I am braving a mooncup. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about it because I'm concentrating very hard on forgetting about it - I'm a little grossed out by the entire concept.

When I am less traumatised I will share more (try to contain your excitement). Although I will just pause to say, why the bloody hell did they have to call it a mooncup? Did they have a board meeting, sit down and say, "right, what's the least accessible, most hippy sounding name we can give this thing?"

I am off to concentrate very hard on packing the car now.

We're all going on a summer holiday...

OK, so the weather forecaster man just predicted 'autumnal weather', but it's still a summer holiday, dammit! Adventurous, thrill seeking souls that we are, we're going camping in the New Forest,here to be precise.

I love camping. If you haven't been, here's some reasons that you should:
1) It's very very green. Even if you venture further than the 50 miles away that we're planning (be honest - can you really say you know everything within a 50 mile radius so well that you couldn't have a good holiday there?), it's usually still pretty green. Obviously all the camping in the world isn't going to make a trip to Oz eco friendly, but camping in France? That's pretty good.
2) It's very very cheap. Even if, like us, you splash out £150 on a nice big tent and buy a decent stove and sleeping bag, if you look after them they'll last for years and save you a fortune compared to paying for hotels.
3) You don't have to be remotely intrepid. I take blankets, rugs, tea bags, seasonings, pretty much everything. I am not intrepid. And we have a mahoosive family sized tent between the three of us (and Teddy could hardly be accused of taking up much space).
4) You will, however feel terribly intrepid.
5) It's lots of fun. You can play in the sunshine, and if your tent is comfortable it's even fun if it rains (probably).

The other thing that I love about camping is the lists. Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I have a certain affection for lists of all shapes and sizes. When you go camping there are food lists, packing lists, baby stuff lists, lists of lists... The possibilities are endless. I am about to sign off for the evening in order to go and start some preliminary lists, but don't worry, I won't share them with you (I'm not sure that Blogger's servers are up to it, to be honest).

Things I have learned this evening

1) Cooking 3 loaves of bread, 2 jars of spiced plum jelly, 6 jars of apple and loganberry curd, 2 jars of spiced whole plums and 2 dozen ginger biscuits is actually quite hard to achieve between the hours of 6:30pm and 10:30pm
2) When the dough is too wet, it is wise not to assume that it will turn out OK. It won't
3) Assuming that your jelly will set because 'it's been boiling for bloody ages' will result in having to decant it, resterilise the jars and reboil it for 10 minutes
4) A thick plastic bowl does not a good bain marie make
5) It is actually possible to use every single bowl, mixer and tupperware in the kitchen in one cooking session
6) The new loaf tin is rather wonderful, despite the alarming dough
7) There is a reason that chefs wear aprons.

Some things I want to try

I have a list of things I want to attempt in our mission to be more self sufficient. Although many of them involve buying in 'ingredients' of one form or another, I'm hoping that they will prove cheaper than the shop bought versions. Just thought you might all like to admire my ambition, and laugh at my complete inability to get any of it done (I have had this list since I started the blog, and haven't ticked anything off it yet):

1) Knit a jumper for me (but first I need to finish my beautiful blanket)
2) Ditto, for Adam (ditto excuse)
3) Double ditto, for Teddy (double ditto excuse)
4) Make paper from our rubbish (need a paper making frame. Ebay maybe?)
5) Make Chistmas crackers from the toilet rolls (need snaps!)
6) Make soap (scared of pouring acid all over myself)
7) Make candles (need to clear jam out of kitchen first, or risk Adam leaving me)
8) Design and make all our cards (I actually have the things I need to do this in front of me, so no excuses here)
9) Make floor cleaner from vinegar and whatever else it is that makes good floor cleaner (I did just try with vinegar in water, and even that worked pretty well)
10) Buy some secondhand linen/fine cotton and make napkins/hankies
11) Sew a patchwork quilt from all my scraps (ah, I have a proper excuse here, my mother's taken my sewing machine away to make it work better)
12) Grow aloe vera and make remedies from it (I am the most accident prone person in the world. Aloe vera is my friend)
13) Buy some fabric from the charity shop next time it's someone's birthday and wrap their present furoshiki style (I don't think we've had a birthday since I came up with this)
14) Make ginger beer
15) Make my own eye and face moisturiser
16) Learn to sharpen our wonderful Japanese knives so that they are actually useful instead of just decorative

Ummmm... Would someone like to babysit Teddy for a year or two so I can get started?

A preserving update

First, here's (pretty much) the sum total of last week's work:

 It might not look a lot, but I reckon I've preserved near enough a bushel of apples (about 42lb), and over 20lb of plums, as well as using several pints of vinegar and a good 20lb of sugar. The top left hand jar in the picture is dried apple pieces, which are such a success I'm going to do even more of (luckily I snatched a couple of extra apples as we left to come home yesterday). I'm also going to make some apple and loganberry curd as soon as Teddy gives me a decent break.

I'm really pleased with the amount we managed to preserve. I know it's a long long way from the kind of harvest we'll be dealing with when we're growing a larger percentage of our own food, but it felt like a nice warm up act.

You mean there's more you can do with plums and apples?

How alarming. Despite a week long preserving session, in which I have tried almost every method known to mankind, I am still not keeping up with the fruit trees. Incidentally, if the apple and plum recipes here and here weren't enough for you, don't worry. I've got more... Ten minutes work yesterday morning yielded this:

 
 Oh, and another five minutes in the afternoon produced this:

 On a brighter note, that is pretty much all that the tree has too offer now. The rest have gone mouldy (in the case of the plums), or to the wasps. Just so you don't think we're dealing with some ancient, well established orchard, there's a picture of the apple tree here if you scroll down.

you'll notice that the trunk is no more than about four inches in diameter. This is not a big tree, and neither is the plum. Next year there might be even more fruit...

I was a little distressed by this, as I'd already preserved this much over the past few days:

 It might not look that impressive but trust me, a lot of jam hours (and fruit!) have gone into that. Jam weary, I headed back into the fray, and altered/invented a few more recipes.

Apple chutney
I should mention, the quantities for this are quite large, as I wanted a good amount of chutney. We eat a lot of it over the year, in sandwiches, with any meal that needs a little something, by itself from the jar if it's tasty enough. Feel free to scale down if you're not quite up to our consumption levels.

Ingredients (spiced vinegar):
2oz peppercorns
1/2oz ground nutmeg
1/2oz cloves
10 bay leaves
1oz root ginger
3tsp mustard seeds
1/2oz whole allspice
3 cinnamon sticks
2 chillis
2tbsp salt
2pt malt vinegar

Ingredients (chutney):
5lb apples
1lb onions
1lb brown sugar
12oz sultanas/raisins
1tbsp salt
2tsp dry mustard powder (e.g. colmans)
4 chunks of root ginger (about 1/2 inch long each)
2tsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 1/2pt spiced vinegar

Method:
1) Lightly bash all of the vinegar ingredients, and put into a pan, Adding a little of the vinegar and bringing to the boil
2) Boil for a minute or two, then add the rest of the vinegar and boil for 3-4 minutes. Much longer and you start to lose most of the vinegar. If you have time, leave the spices in the vinegar while it cools to allow it to infuse a bit more. If you're making more than one batch, save the spices for a second boiling and just add a quarter of the quantities again. Strain vinegar.
3) Wash and sterilise jars and a jug, putting them into an oven at 125 degrees C for at least 15 minutes. Leave them in the oven while you make the chutney.
4) Finely chop or mince all the ingredients, depending on how smooth you like your chutney. I tend to roughly chop the apples and onions and leave the sultanas whole, for a chunky chutney.
5) Simmer the apples and onions with half the vinegar until tender (I sometimes fry the onions first, but it really doesn't make much difference), then add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until thick (anywhere from 15-45 minutes).
6) Remove ginger chunks, pour into sterilised bottles and seal.

I'm trying to remember whether I've made anything that I haven't yet posted the recipe for, but I've got one last day of preserving ahead of me, so I'll let you know if I come across anything.

Still got a glut? Head this way!

Too many plums and apples? Yesterday's recipes for plum and apple jam and spiced whole plums not enough for you? Then read on, my fried. Here's another batch of plum/apple/freezer leftover recipes. There's not a lot other than recipes, I promise that when I'm less bake-weary I'll add photos and some of my usual wit, charm and drama. Ahem.

Spiced apple butter

Ingredients:
4lb plums
1 1/4pt water
1 1/4pt medium cider (you could probably replace this for water without an enormous difference to the taste)
1tsp ground allspice
1 1/2tsp ground cloves
3tsp ground cinnamon (all the spice quantities are quite generous, I like spices. Feel free to reduce slightly)

Method:
1) Wash jars and a jug and pop into the oven at 125 degrees C for 15 mins or so. Turn the oven off and leave in there for now.
2) Chop the apples, cores and peel included, discarding stems and any badly bruised bits
3) Place into a pan with the cider and water and bring to the boil, then simmer gently, stirring frequently, for about 30 minutes or until the apples are very soft and pulpy
4) Rub the pulp through a nylon sieve (a metal sieve might taint the colour and taste of the butter) and discard the leftover pulp. Weigh it before returning it to the pan.
5) Add 10-12oz of sugar for every 1lb of apple pulp (more if you've used cookers, less for eaters), as well as the spices, to the pan.
6) Bring to the boil and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
7) Continue boiling, stirring occasionally. I didn't quite know how long to boil it for, as it didn't seem to want to set quite like normal jam, so I boiled it at a rolling boil (bubbles remain even when you're stirring) for about 10 minutes, then potted it. I'll let you know at a later date whether that was a success.

Herby apple jelly

There are a number of different options for this, but they all start by making apple juice. if you have a good juicer (i.e. one that makes clear, not cloudy or thick), use that. If not, a jelly bag is far cheaper to buy, so use the method below.

Ingredients:
3lb apples
2pt water
Granulated sugar
Herbs of your choice (see below for more details)

Method:
1) Chop fruit, including peel and cores. Put in a large pan and cover with water (add more if it looks remotely dry - you want there to be plenty of water to get the maximum juice, but not so much that you end up with flavourless liquid when you strain).
2) Put fruit in a pan and simmer very gently for at least 30-45 minutes, probably more like an hour, stirring occasionally, until the fruit has completely disintegrated.
3) Strain through a jelly bag overnight (suspend jelly bag over a bowl, but hanging it from a hook or the legs of a tall stool, and fill with apple pulp), then measure the volume of juice. If the apple pulp is still strong tasting, you could boil it again with more sugar and repeat, storing the first lot of juice in the fridge.
4) Sterilise jars and jug as above and pop a small plate in the freezer.
5) Pour juice into the pan (you may want to divvy it up if you've got a lot of juice and want to make a few different types of jelly), adding 12oz-1lb of sugar for every pint of juice (less if you've used eating apples, more for cookers, unless you want a fairly tart jam).
6) Bring to the boil stirring until sugar is dissolved.
7) Boil vigorously until setting point is reached (a spoonful on the cold plate, when left for a few minutes to cool, forms a skin if you nudge it with a finger), stirring frequently.
8) Skim (I often don't bother skimming with jam, but I think it's quite useful here, as the jelly can be cloudy otherwise), pour into sterilised jars and seal.

Herbs:
All quantities assume you're using at least a pint of juice, add more if more juice, less if less. Not complicated. Blanch all leaves in boiling water for a few seconds then rinse in cold tap water before using, to get rid of any nasties.

1) Mint - add a good handful of mint leaves as soon as the sugar is dissolved, reserving another handful and chopping them finely. Before potting the jelly remove the leaves and stir in the finely chopped ones.
2) Rosemary - Add a small handful of small sprigs once the sugar is dissolved. Remove before potting, and wedge a large sprig in each jar. The sprig needs to be quite well wedged in place so it doesn't float to the top and either go off or make your jelly look like there's a many legged creature hanging from the inside of the lid.
3) Tarragon - as for rosemary
4) Cinnamon - add a couple of cinnamon sticks once the sugar has dissolved. Assuming they don't lose their shape, you could use these in the jar too, as they'll still look nice and have plenty of flavour left to infuse into the jelly.

You can actually add pretty much any herb, spice or flavouring to go with any meal - basil, cloves, ginger, thyme and marjoram would probably all be nice if you were eating something that they might go with. You could try making a jar of each and see which is successful. This is very much a trial year for me too - I've made jellies and jams before, but not on this scale!

Dried apples

Ingredients:
Apples
Salt
Water

Method:
1) Peel and core apples (if you have a corer). If no corer presents itself (does anyone actually have one of these?), do what I did and quarter them, remove cores and slice into thin wedges, about 2-3mm max at the fattest point
2) As you slice, put the apples into a bowl of weak brine (about 1 tsp of salt to a generous pint of water). This stops them going brown.
3) Once all the apples are sliced, rinse under a cold tap, drain and arrange on a wire oven shelf.
4) Turn the oven on to its lowest temperature (ours is 50 degrees C), put the shelves back in the oven, and almost close the door, wedging it a little bit open to allow moisture to escape.
5) The apples will take anything from 2-8 hours to dry.

I don't know whether these will last as long as shop bought dried apples. I'm planning on putting them in sterile airtight jars and seeing how long they last - we have enough of a glut to try things like this, and we'll know what we can and can't do next year. I'm also trying plums, but six hours in they aren't yet dry, and I'm not sure how much longer I'm prepared to give them.

More tomorrow!

August preserve-fest!

My goodness, but I've been a busy little domestic goddess the past couple of days. Apologies for the lack of posting.

Whenever I read books on self sufficiency they always describe August as being the busiest month, harvesting and preserving non-stop to keep perishable goods for winter. We are, as you've possibly noticed, in no way self sufficient yet, but keeping on top of the fruit my mother grows and the blackberries in the hedges is exhausting enough!

It's been good doing this at my mother's, because as well as the fruit trees she has a lot of cooking equipment that I don't have (a jam sieve, big mixing bowls, lots of pans, etc), a more efficient oven, a functioning herb garden (mine aren't really big enough to steal large quantities from yet, while hers are in danger of murdering the vegetables and taking over the world) and lots of spices, although I've had to buy even more! I went and bought about £20 worth of sugar and vinegar to make everything, but I'll do a bit more of a precise run down when I've finished the bake-fest. Suffice to say, I can now state with certainty that doing it yourself is a lot cheaper than buying, even if you have to spend a bit of money on pans and things rather than pinching from a willing/unwilling parent.

Over the past couple of days I've made: 
1) Plum and apple jam
2) Spiced apple chutney
3) Spiced preserved whole plums
4) Apple butter
5) Blackcurrant jam
6) Apple and rosemary jelly
7) Apple and mint jelly

I'm too bake-weary to post all the recipes today, but I'll make a start. Apologies for all the imperial measurements, for some reason I automatically operate and note quantities down in imperial when I'm cooking.

Plum and apple jam

Ingredients:
3lb apples, peeled and chopped (place cores in a muslin bag, keep the peel if you want to make apple butter later)
3lb plums, washed
1pt water
4lb 8oz sugar (you could up this to more like 6lb if you use cooking apples. I used eaters so they were quite sweet)
Juice of two lemons
1 tsp cinnamon

Method:
1) Wash jars and a jug and place in an oven at 125 degrees C for 10-15 mins. Turn oven off and leave everything in there for now. Put a small plate in the freezer to chill.
2) Place apples and plums into preserving pan. You can either leave the plums whole, counting them in and counting the stones out (which is what I do), or you can halve and de-stone them before putting them into the pan. Add half the water and simmer gently until everything is cooked and squidgy.
3) Add sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon, and the rest of the water if it's looking a bit drier than you think is healthy (I just add it regardless) and turn the heat up to a rolling boil (i.e. it boils even when it's being stirred)
4) After a few minutes of rolling boil, drop a little bit onto the side plate and pop it in the fridge for a few minutes. If the jam forms a skin (it wrinkles when you push it with a finger), the jam is ready. If not, boil for another few minutes and try again. For some reason, I noticed with this jam that it went from not set to quite a solid set very suddenly, so keep testing regularly!
5) Turn off the heat, ladle jam into jug and pour into jars (or ladle straight into jars if you have one that isn't the size of a whole soup bowl, like mine). Seal and label.

Spiced whole plums:
I have to say, I was a bit dubious about this recipe, as the idea of mixing sugar and vinegar freaked me out a bit, and I don't really like pickled things so generally was unconvinced by the presence of vinegar. But my mother assured me it's delicious, and having tried the spices vinegar syrup I can well believe it. I don't know whether these will be more of a cold meat accompaniment or something to eat with ice cream, but I've only done four jars so it's a bit of a test run for me. The recipe is adapted from a very ancient recipe book which is mostly held together with sellotape.

Ingredients:
1lb 8oz plums
3/4pt white vinegar (I used that clear malt stuff, no idea if that's what you're meant to use
1lb 8oz granulated sugar
1 1/2oz stick of cinnamon (I made this about 3 sticks)
1/2oz whole allspice
1/2oz cloves (I just chucked in a heaped tablespoon of all the spices that called for half an ounce, I couldn't get my scales to register such a tiny amount accurately)
1/2oz coriander seeds
1/2oz grated nutmeg (it's cheaper to buy whole and grate your own)
A few slices fresh ginger

Method:
1) Sterilise jars and jug as above and leave to cool in oven.
2) Boil vinegar, sugar and spices together for about five minutes until syrupy (drop it on a plate, when it cools a bit it should have the consistency of a light syrup).
3) Wipe plums with a cloth wrung out in hot water and arrange upright in jars. Discard any bruised/damaged ones.
4) When the syrup has cooled enough to put a finger in it comfortably, pour it over the plums, filling the jar brim full. The plums may float up a bit, but don't worry too much. Ideally you'll have a bit of syrup leftover, stick it in the fridge for now.
5) Leave for 12-24 hours, the strain off syrup, reboil it (adding the extra from the fridge), cool and pour over plums and seal jars.
6) Store in a cool, dark place for at least three months before using - at Christmas!

Right, I'm off to make another batch of jelly and take photos of my wares so far to add to this post (check back in a couple of hours, they'll be here). It's perfect stay-in-and-bake weather, so I'll probably get more done today:

 Any more ideas for using up half a tree's worth of eating apples gratefully received!

Budgeting: doing what you said you would

I'm really very sorry, but having told you to do all those tedious, horrible things to arrange your budget, I've got more bad news for you. It was only about 25% of the work. The rest of the work is day after day, week after week, possibly year after year. Sticking to a budget does get easier, but if you set tight limits on what you can spend, you're always going to have to be aware of it and make a conscious effort to stick to it.

This is the bit that used to always trip me up when it came to budget planning. I would make a wonderful budget, with cuts here there and everywhere to allow spare cash for shopping, holidays, or whatever, but I never stuck to it, or even made much effort to stick to it. Thinking back on it, I just don't think I wanted any of those things badly enough to be prepared to make sacrifices day after day to be able to afford them. Dinner out on a Friday night was just too tempting to make it worth sacrificing so I could buy shoes on Saturday.

However, all that has changed. Being more self sufficient is something we want very badly. We are both prepared to suffer short term sacrifices in order to benefit in the long term - when we are more self sufficient we will, bizarrely, have more spare cash (assuming Adam and I continue to earn at a similar rate to our current one) and eat nicer food (due to growing fresh for most of it), as well as having more of the kind of lifestyle we want.

Anyway, the point of this preamble is to get to the point of this post, namely sticking to the budget. I honestly think that it is impossible to stick to a budget unless you are prepared to remember, every day, why you want to stick to it. When I see a nice new book (one of my many weaknesses) in the lovely bookshop in town, I am able to remember that I would prefer to put an extra tenner in the Compost Bin, and go and borrow a similar, rattier copy from the library.

So apart from just wanting to, what else can you do to help stick to the budget that you spent all those hours slaving over? You'll come up with your own methodology after a while, but here's some ideas:
1) Every month, on pay day, sit down and review the previous month's budget. Did you stick to it? What did you go over on? Can you realistically stick to it next month? Be brutal with yourself, and up any figures that you estimated too low. Go through the whole tedious budget rebalancing again if you have to. I probably did this on a grand scale every month for the first three months we budgeted, as I had over and under estimated practically everything, despite having put quite a lot of effort into the original budget.
2) Find a way to stop yourself over-spending. For us, it's taking out the cash for each thing we spend on regularly (food, petrol, days out) and keeping them in envelopes. Seeing that there is only one £20 note left for two weeks' shopping is a very sobering experience, more so (for me) than looking at a bank balance on my computer screen. If you're really organised and can avoid going over, you can make a little extra interest every month by putting these spends on a credit card, keeping the cash in a savings account, and paying off the card in full at the end of every single month (miss a payment or overspend and you'll probably lose all the benefit of doing this in one fell swoop, so only do it if you really can be strict. I can't do it). One of yesterday's commentors said that she uses the iphone budgeting tool to help her remember day to day budgets. It might take a couple of months to figure out what works for you, but the key is to not lose heart and to keep trying and keep juggling until it does work.
3) After a few months, see if you can make any further cuts. We managed to cut our food budget a little more after a few months, as well as our days out budget (investigated local, cheap attractions). I think that these are the kind of little adjustments it's not so difficult to make once you're used to living on a tighter budget generally.
4) As I said earlier, remember why you are budgeting. Whatever it's for - to pay off existing debt, or a mortgage, or save for a house deposit, or a holiday - try to keep that in mind every single time you go to take your card out of your wallet.
4) Work out how quickly your current budget will allow you to reach your goal, and decide whether you want to either extend the time and reduce your saving, or reduce the time and grow the savings each month. I think I initially had us buying a house in about 2015, when I did the sums, but through endless trimming here and there have managed to make buying within the next three years a very real possibility.

Garden envy

I'm at my mother and step father's this week, and have been having a touch of garden envy. I should apologise in advance for the uninspiring photographs - I was rushing round trying to take them while Teddy napped (after starting his day at a sprightly 6:15am).

This bit doesn't bother me too much:

(Who needs more lawn? Waste of good vegetable space). But I would quite like to be able to walk through this rather pleasing archway:

 into my orchard/greenhouse bit. The orchard has a comedy Snow White apple tree:

 as well as some not-quite-there-yet pears and a completely laden plum tree:

 (Picture lots more branches like this).

The piece de resistance (picture some accents in the appropriate place - I have no idea how to make them appear there), however, is the kitchen garden outside the back door:

 I am very jealous. To be fair, my parents have lived here for over 20 years, and have spent most of that time getting the garden the way that they want it (for my step father, this mostly involves building more sheds, as far as I can work out).

I spent one long, hot summer earning my keep by levelling the space for the kitchen garden, and it looks rather wonderful, if I do say so myself. I would love to have something like this (although on a bigger scale, as I'm hoping to pretty much feed us from it) by the end of out five year deadline.

Incidentally, I made some amazing plum and apple jam from the Snow White tree (I'm sure that the apples have a more sensible name than that really). I'll post a recipe tomorrow, along with some of the other things I'm hoping to find the time to make - spiced preserved plums, apple jelly, apple jelly with spices in, fruity chutney, and anything else I can find/make up/adapt a recipe for that will use up the apple/plum glut. And then in a few weeks I can start on the pear glut! I'm hoping for a courgette glut, but the plant is not looking like it's going to oblige.

Lucky that homemade bread with homemade jam is one of my favourite breakfasts. Really I need to find someone who wants to barter jam and chutney for actual food! 

Hopefully a more constructive post tomorrow (you may have to wait for the weekend for more sticking-to-the-budget stuff. Apparently being in Wales makes my brain melt and I can't remember all the things I was going to say).

The kettle conundrum

I'm pleased to tell you that this is not a post on anything so mundane as buying a kettle, but actually a complex yet insightful way of looking at the sudden peaks and troughs of energy when... No, sorry, it's about buying a kettle.

A kettle that filled a very precise and non-negotiable set of requirements:

1) Not entirely offensive looking
2) Electric - no Agas here.
3) Cordless if possible
4) Have a minimum 1 cup fill (our current one is so broad at the base that its minimum fill level is about half a litre)
5) Not burn your hand if you have to refill it soon after boiling (so the lid has to come off without having to put your hand in the way of the steam)
6) As energy efficient as possible

You cannot imagine how hard it was to find something that fulfilled all of the above. If I was being blindly green I might go for something like the eco kettle, but since it is possibly the ugliest thing I have ever contemplated putting on my kitchen work top, something better had to be found.

After briefly contemplating a beautiful Alessi kettle, but swiftly discounting it on the grounds that it managed requirement 1 and none of the others, I finally hit upon the not-too-ugly-to-sit-on-the-worktop Magimix kettle (who knew they did anything other than mixers? not me). Not only does it have a minimum one cup fill level, it's also insulated, so when I boil the kettle and then five minutes later remember that I am not the only one in the house with requirements and that Teddy actually needs a bottle soon, any last dregs will still be as warm as possible for using or reboiling with more water. Ingenious. Might also prevent me causing Adam actual bodily harm when he (slightly) overfills the kettle for the thousandth time, as at least the water won't be stone cold again in five minutes flat.

A helpful friend tried to scupper my pleasure by pointing out that in winter it could arguably be useful to have a non-insulated kettle, as the radiated heat could help warm the house, but I am doing the shopping equivalent of putting my hands over my ears and going 'la la la la la'.

Weirdly, being so anal about my purchasing now gives me just as much retail satisfaction as my old shopaholic tendencies. One carefully researched and saved for purchase (or even better, finding a freebie!) genuinely pleases me more than buying half a dozen items at the limit of affordability. Isn't that nice?

A little blackberry cordial interlude

To break up the boring budgeting posts, I thought I'd post this incredibly simple blackberry syrup recipe. I am constantly on the hunt for something new to do with blackberries at the moment, as it seems such a shame not to pick them every time I go out for a walk!

The syrup makes a nice cordial, and I'm also thinking of using it to flavour ice cream (with some frozen blackberries chucked in), and it would probably add a nice summery flavour to some kind of punch.

Ingredients:
Equal weights blackberries and sugar (I had about 2lb of both)

Method
1) Preheat over to 125 degrees C, pop clean bottles and a jug into the oven to sterilise. After 15 mins or so, turn the oven off, leaving everything where it is to cool down while you make the syrup.
2) Weigh out blackberries into a saucepan, weigh out sugar on top
3) Place pan over a low heat and ignore for a few minutes
4) I think you're not meant to stir it at all, for the clearest, purest cordial, but I can't work out how to make the last bit of sugar dissolve without stirring, so stir gently after most of the sugar has dissolved
5) Once all the sugar is dissolved, simmer very gently for a couple of minutes
6) Strain the syrup through a muslin (invest in a butter muslin, it will get lots of use, or fold a clean baby muslin in half and strain through two layers) into a sterilised jug. You can skip this step if you have (a) a steady hand and (b) a pan with a decent spout
7) Pour into sterile bottles, seal. Label when cool.

 (For the record, I think that's a 750ml bottle, so 2lb of blackberries makes about 500ml of syrup). No idea how long this will last, but I would think with all that sugar, and in a sterile sealed bottle, it must be good for a couple of months. I'll put a bottle away for a couple of months and examine it for mould...

In other news, I have decided carrots are not worth growing. I bought Parmex carrot seeds, which are bred to be good container producers, and this is the best specimen so far:

 

Debt free, eventually

Our money saving choices stem from our main goal, which is to buy a house/plot of land to build on. This is the biggest hurdle in our path to self sufficiency, and in order to make it remotely feasible we had to take a pretty hard look at our finances.

At some point around the time I fell pregnant (organised people would have done this before considering a family, but we like to break with tradition) I sat down and really went through our outgoings and our debts - a jumbled assortment of small debts including a credit card, graduate loan each and overdraft apiece. All pretty small, but the total was horrendous. I knew we needed to pay it all off as soon as possible in order to (a) be comfortable and (b) contemplate buying somewhere at some point in the distant future.

I'm telling you all this boring background only so that you're aware that I'm preaching from the point of view of having some idea what I'm talking about. I'm not an expert by any means - if you want pages and pages of money saving ideas and expertise, the Money Saving Expert website and forums are a fantastic starting point - but I can hopefully give you some ideas for getting the basics sorted.

So, assuming you fell into category (a) last night (the gleeful, spending-less-than-you-earn one, you smug git of whom I am very envious), I would recommend this plan for the excess:
1) Increase any credit card payments that you set as the minimum in your original budget. Increase as much as you can bear to
2) Overpay on any other debts (except mortgage) that won't penalise you for paying early (some personal loans give you a little bonus at the end if you don't over or under pay, so there's no point paying extra on these - read the small print)
3) Overpay on your mortgage - imagine how much richer you'll be. If you overpay your mortgage by only a few pounds a month you can save yourself really quite a significant sum in terms of reducing the total interest you pay (I can explain why further if you want, but it's not hard to work out)
4) Have some fun. Give to charity. Do whatever you want!

If you fell into the rather larger option (b) category yesterday, the plan is a little more involved, and a bit less fun:
1) Your first challenge is to make your outgoings at least equal to your income, if not less. Look at every single item on the budget in turn and consider how you might reduce it. A few things you can consider:
i) Consider moving house, if you pay extortionate rent for space you don't really need. huge step, i know, but effective. We live in a two-up-two-down terrace, and it is plenty big enough for two of us and a baby (soon to be toddler). You have no real need for a spare bedroom if you have a sitting room that can fit an airbed in it. Realistically we could have survived in a one bedroom place, but we didn't need to make those kinds of cuts, and since Teddy's a pretty light sleeper, I'm glad we didn't have to.
ii) Look at every single utility and check on USwitch or another price comparison site to see whether you can save on it. Change where necessary, but remember to keep budgeting the old amount until the new provider has proven to be cheaper.
iii) Look at your food shopping bill. I can almost guarantee you can save money somewhere here. By altering our eating habits slightly, we've managed to keep our food shopping bill exactly the same (if not slightly less) over the past 12 months, despite moving to almost entirely organic food and the increases in food prices. In many ways we eat better than we did. I'll look at ways to save money with food shopping one day this week, as it's one of the biggest hidden expenses (ever fallen victim to the Waitrose Effect? Well known scientific phenomenon, happens when you go into Waitrose for a pint of milk and come out with £30 worth of goodies).
iv) Cut back on luxuries. I'm sorry, but you really don't need to spend £30 a month on clothes, £5 a month on make up, £10 a week on wine, £5 a week on coffee, etc etc. These luxuries are the things that often come as hideous shocks when you add up what you actually spend on 'one offs' or 'little treats' over the course of a year. You need to keep cutting these down until your expenditure matches your income.
2) If you have any credit cards or other debt for which you have only filled in the minimum amount on the budget planner, you really need to try to cut down your spending even more, and up the amount you are paying on this debt. Otherwise you'll be paying it off for the rest of your life, and paying loads more interest than you have to. Prioritise your debts and pay off those with the highest interest rates first.
3) The worst case scenario here is that no amount of cutting will make your outgoings match your income. I'm afraid I'm not an awful lot of help with that, but if you really are in huge financial difficulties, I again recommend visiting the Money Saving Expert Forums, where there is lots of advice on dealing with creditors, bankruptcy etc etc.

The most important thing to realise is that things will only change if you actively make them change. If you want to pay off your debt or build up a house deposit, and you're not currently earning enough money to do so, I'm afraid you're going to need to make some sacrifices in order to change this situation. All the wishful thinking in the world won't save the money for you.

Having sat down and made all these grand plans, I'm afraid you also need to implement them. If you've budgeted £20 a month on clothes, and you've bought a £10 scarf, then I'm terribly sorry but you can't order that Boden dress, even if it's only £15 in the sale. Wait till next month - if it's still there, buy it, if not, important lesson learned about priorities. More tomorrow (or later on today, if I actually get round to writing it) on actually sticking to the budget once you've made it.

Budgeting, or, Something I've been meaning to do for ages

As you may have gathered, we live pretty frugally (with minor slip ups). In an effort to demonstrate how committed we are to the cause, and perhaps help anyone else who is struggling to make a decent budget planner, I thought I'd share our budget planning tips. I'll do a couple more posts on money and money saving this week, as I've got a stack of things that I keep meaning to post on in this area.

The first step, in this household, is to put me in charge of the money. My background is finance and I'm a control freak; two qualities that make me perfectly suited to running the household budget. But whoever it is, make sure that someone (or both/all of you, if you're a couple/family with adult children/menage a trois and prefer that) is prepared to sit down for one day and do it, and then spend an hour or so on it once a month.

After many years of trying and testing budgeting, here's my foolproof method to sorting out your budget:
1) Download the Money Saving Expert budget planner. It's the best one I've found by a long shot. The MSE website is generally pretty darned amazing, so if you're looking for information on money saving in any form, check out the articles and forum on there.
2) Do the fun bit, put your income in the 'what do you earn?' section. If your income varies, use either your average or lowest monthly income (always always always budget for the worst case scenario - it's a lot easier to spend extra money than make extra cutbacks at short notice). I include child benefit and tax credits in the income section, but if you put any benefits straight into a savings account or spend them on something specific, remember to account for that in the spending section
3) Go through the 'what do you spend?' section and fill in every single thing you spend on. Don't estimate unless you absolutely have to (and if you do, make sure that if anything you're over rather than under estimating). Use utility bills and/or online banking to work out how much you spend on your bills (look at previous statements to average things like electricity over the year). I can't emphasise enough how important it is to spend time on the spending section. It's so easy to skip over boring bits or say, "oh, I can't possibly spend more than £25 a month on electricity (we do, and we're pretty bloody careful). There are sections for food at work and drinks out. If you eat at work or go out, use them.
4) Did I mention that doing the 'what do you spend?' section is really important? I need to add something - it's really important to do this budget for what you actually spend, right now. Not what you need to spend in order to be able to save £500 a month towards a house deposit, but what you actually spend at the moment.
5) A note on debt spends. If you have fixed loans, put in the actual loan amount. If you have credit cards, put in the minimum amount for now (unless you know you're happily meeting a sensible sized payment every month). We can fiddle with these figures later if there's money left over.
5) Double check your spends. Have you really put everything in? Go through at least one month's bank statement and make sure every single thing you spent on has an allocation in the budget. Don't say, "oh, that was a one off," make a bigger allowance in your big one offs section - 12x what you spent in one month, to be precise. Remember, budget for the worst case scenario, and you can never be disappointed.
6) Look at the 'Check your results' section and (a) jump up and down with glee or (b) panic. In my experience, the majority of people who do this properly and aren't earning really quite a good salary have to go for option (b) at this stage. So don't worry if you do. If you're one of the lucky option (a) types, thank your lucky stars and don't waste the excess on frip (our family's universal term for all things unnecessary) - if you put only a minimum payment on your credit card in the spending section, I would say it is essential to put absolutely every penny of this spare cash into paying off the card/s as soon as possible, especially if it's not 0%
7) If you were a (b), try not to panic too much. I'll be back tomorrow with lots of tips on cutting down the excess and making the world a happy place again.

Two other that started the day with their own blog posts, but have been amalgamated due to not being remotely important in the grand scheme of things:
1) Typical, on the first day of our non-meat challenge, I find a brilliant looking low salt bacon cure. Am I the only one who didn't think of streaky bacon coming from the belly and back bacon coming from the loin?
2) Ha, I've just clicked on one of my own GoogleAds! I suppose I probably won't get paid for that. But look, it is a useful website - I don't know if the jars are any good (I may never need to get new jars again after my bulk Le Parfait purchase from Ebay on the weekend), but it's got some really cool labels, which I badly need (I mean, I need labels, not I need cool labels, but I'm not complaining).

Just call me antonio

My restraint in using the pasta maker lasted until about 2pm yesterday afternoon, when I decided that we were having bolognese for dinner. I got a pan of sauce on the go (garlic, onions, carrots, courgettes, beef mince, tinned toms, foraged wild marjoram, low salt stock cubes and a splash of balsamic vinegar), and set about making my pasta dough. I made the happy discovery that the maker comes with a penne die already attached, but I still stuck with my original plan of pappardelle (extra wide tagliatelle).

It took me a few goes to figure out the right speed to get the stuff into the mixer, and my first attempts weren't exactly michelin star style:

 (Actually, those are my second attempt. I was too embarrassed to even photograph the ragged 1/2 inch strips that made up my first attempt.

However, within a few minutes I was cranking out pasta like a pro:

 Although we were planning on eating half of it straight away, I wanted to freeze some, so I hung it out to air dry for a bit:

 then twisted it into roughly half portion nests, just like a professional.

The bolognese was nicely reduced and scrummy after 2 hours gentle bubbling, so I plopped the fresh pasta into boiling water for a couple of minutes, and served up (with a scraping of organic parmesan over the top, naturally). Oh My God. It was the best pasta I have evertasted. Ever. We ate 1/4 of the pasta each, which, for the record, is an enormous portion and far more than we needed. But it was so goooooood. Slightly meaty in textue (if you know what I mean) and yummy and scrummy, I suddenly understood why Italians say that pasta is delicious with a drizzle of garlic or truffle oil.

Incidentally, the recipe was not exactly complex:
500g type 00 flour
4 eggs

Mix in the Kenwood (I suppose if you committed the sacrilege of owning a different mixer it would also suffice) until mix resembles breadcrumbs, but can be pushed together to make a dough. Job done. The most difficult bit was working out how quickly to drop it into the maker.

Oh, I suppose we'd better get on to the money bit. Which is, after all, the point of the exercise (although delicious pasta is a pretty good point all on its own). I made pasta with 500g of flour and four eggs, which is enough for four servings (probably more like 5-6 servings if we ever manage to eat slightly less of the stuff in one sitting) plus enough extra for Teddy.

Half a dozen organic/semi organic (i.e. from a tiny local producer who doesn't feed their chickens crap, but doesn't get organically certified food) eggs from the farm shop is anything from £1-1.75, so assuming four cost about £1 and 500g organic flour was about 50p, we're talking a total of £1.50 for around 750g of pasta, or £2 per kg. Fresh, organic linguine from Ocado (i.e. Waitrose) is £4.36 per kg, and the organic dried tagliatelle is £4.18 per kg. I know that's the more expensive end of the scale (bog standard organic dried spaghetti is only £1.96 per kg), but I've managed to make organic pasta that is far nicer than even the fresh organic stuff from Waitrose, for half the price. Even if you add on a few pence per kilo for the energy used by the pasta maker, it's still plenty cheaper. It's even still cheaper if I add an imaginary £1 per batch for the cost of the pasta maker, which would mean that the pasta maker will be paid off in 3-4 of years (assuming a batch every 1-2 weeks).

Once the maker is 'paid off', and if we get chickens (free eggs!), we'll be making fabulous pasta for under £1 per kg including energy usage, which is rather impressive, if I do say so myself.

Finally, and most importantly, Teddy approves:

 

Fab idea for apple leftovers

I only posted about five minutes ago, but I came across a fabulous tip here, on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op blog (a great blog co-authored by lots of eco/frugal/self sufficient types) and had to share.

Basically, save cores and peels from all your apples (you could use my vegetable stock tip, and keep a tupperware in the freezer and pop in the cores/peel as you get them - I've heard that freezing denatures pectin, but it hasn't affected any of my jam so far). When you've got a sensible amount, add spices (if wanted) and sugar, and cook over a very low heat for aaaaaaages. There are more detailed instructions on this site.

Efficient sufficient, or what? I'm going to my mother's this week, and she has a couple of trees weighed down with ripe apples at the moment, so I'm on the hunt for apple recipes. If anyone's got any more, feel free to chuck them this way!

I promise to leave you alone until morning now. 

Jam, with a kick

I bought a load of rhubarb (2lb, to be precise) cheaply from the farmers' market last week, with no real idea what I might do with it. Since I haven't yet come up with anything more inventive, I decided to make jam.

All the recipes I found called for fresh ginger along with crystallised, but since all I had was the end of a bag of crystallised jam and some ground ginger, I improvised. Here's my recipe:

2lb rhubarb, chopped into approx 1 inch chunks
1lb 12oz sugar (I don't like my jam too sweet, most recipes call for equal quantities fruit and sugar)
125g crystallised ginger, chopped into smaller chunks (usually in the dried fruit/baking section of the supermarket, and in health food shops)
1tbsp ground ginger (I guess about 25g fresh, grated or chopped and in a muslin bag, would have the same effect)
500ml of water
Juice of 2 lemons

1) Stick a plate in the freezer, sterilise jars (wash, pop into over at 125 celsius for 10 mins, then turn off oven and leave there until you need them)
2) Bring rhubarb, lemons, ginger and water to the boil, simmer for 10-15 mins till rhubarb is tender
3) Add sugar, turn up heat to max
4) Boil as vigorously as you can for 10-15 mins
5) Test jam on cold plate (put a teaspoonful on plate, put in fridge for a few minutes, if jam wrinkles when pushed with a finger, it's ready. If not, boil for 5 more mins and try again)
6) Ladle into jars, seal, label when cool

Job done. I can't verify for how well it will set (I got bored of boiling it after 20 minutes, and it was beginning to get a bit of a skin at that stage), but it tastes absolutely gorgeous. I'd add more photos, but to be honest all there is to see is a line of three jars...

I've had a bit of a bake-fest today. As well as the jam, I made:
1) 1 loaf white bread
2) 6 barleycorn rolls (Doves Organic flour, has flaxseed and barley and things in. V good)
3) 18 spiced biscuits (Rachel Allen's Bake, fabulous book, can't recommend it enough, use it for everything)
4) 1 loaf gluten free bread for Adam's colleague, who apparently was impressed enough with the last one I made (I have no idea why, it looked supremely unappetising to me) to want more
4) Shortbread oatmeal vanilla biscuits (also Rachel's)

Now here's a good reason to be self sufficient...

The oil has almost run out! I know it's a bit of a scaremongery, worst-case-scenario article, but it's still quite interesting, no? (Incidentally, I only came across this article because someone on another website pointed it out, hopefully he won't mind me stealing his link).

I think it's interesting that as the next new crisis comes along, we forget all about the old one. How often do we read about the hole in the ozone layer now? Do you know, without googling, whether it is getting smaller, larger, or staying the same? Ten years ago I was being taught in school that we needed to find alternatives to fossil fuels because they will run out, now it's all about alternatives because of climate change.

I think it's interesting to be reminded that whether we like it or not, fossil fuels are running out. Whether we find alternatives before we have to turn to dirtier and, more pertinantly to the non-eco-worriers, much more expensive methods, depends on both government choices and consumer demand. So I say, get demanding!

It's another one to add to the list of reasons to be self sufficient though - the more expensive energy gets, the more financial viable (and logical) it becomes to invest in one or more of the host of domestic renewable energy generators.

One man's trash is another man's treasure

One of my most prominent childhood memories is being dragged round car boot sales at stupid o'clock on a saturday morning. My mother (an antique dealer) used to spend hours at the things, and my sister and I would have to entertain ourselves running in amongst cars and random strangers (ah, the innocence of the 80s). However, since I started living frugally, I suddenly get car boots (the sales, not just hanging out in car boots, obviously).

There's a pretty good one at Ford Airfield, just a couple of miles away, which I frequent, still with my sister (although she can now be trusted to shop without a warning not to wander off with strangers). In fact, she enjoys them so much that she makes a living from buying and selling wonderful vintage bits and bobs from charity shops and boot fairs (and evil imported crap from Thailand, but I gloss over that in my head). If you particularly want to, you can read about her lovely vintage finds here, as well as find a link to her shop.

Despite looking less than joyful to see me at 7:45am when I bounced up to her doorstep, she was a bit jollier by 8:45am, after a huge bacon roll and a bunch of bargainous suitcases:

 Of course, there are downsides to going car booting with someone who loves vintage junk as much as you. I bought this plate before she could get her grubby mits on it:

 But she pounced on this one the moment I pointed it out and bought it from under my nose!

 She'll probably make a good profit on it too (not hard when the outlay is only £1).

Of course, when attending a car boot, it's always important to remember that you don't need absolutely everything there. I have a permanent vague list of things I'd like to buy, which currently includes, among other things:
1) A cast iron skillet
2) A chest of drawers for Teddy's room
3) A Kenwood Chef mincer attachment.
Although I will occasionally go off list if there's something particularly good (the other week I bought a massive roasting tin for 60p, which I didn't have on my list, but will come in useful for the few of times a year we roast a huge chicken or whole lamb leg. Did I mention it was only 60p?), I am quite strict with myself about not just buying everything that looks vaguely nice and/or remotely useful for some distant point in the future.

It's wonderful seeing the things people buy at car boots. It really shows that what you might consider absolute junk will almost certainly be valued by someone. Stand by the exit long enough and you'll see people wandering out with torn lampshades, three toy prams, a broken jug, a park bench, a set of legless dining chairs, countless broken tools, and anything else you can imagine.

Speaking of off list, I only just resisted the temptation to ask how much this fellow was:

 (Yes, he was alive and no, he wasn't for sale. As far as I could tell).

And this is why the supermarkets win

I came across an ingenious idea the other day, when contemplating those essentials that I can't manage to get from local sources. I would start a food buying group! There are various wholesalers, including Suma and Infinity, which sell organic produce and are set up as co-operatives, so nice and ethical and jolly.

I figured I could easily find a couple of people to make up the relatively small minimum order (Suma's is around £250, but can be more, depending on where you live) and benefit from the lovely wholesale prices and lovely organic food. So I phoned Suma this morning and got access to the website, did the sums and hit the sticking point. I am as willing to pay over the odds for organic food as the next eco/ethi-geek, but unfortunately I just cannot justify paying anywhere from 5-40% more than supermarket prices for enormous wholesale quantities.

It's not the fault of Suma, or any of the other wholesalers and if I was rich I would happily pay the extra, but for now I think it's something to go onto the back burner, and I'll revisit it when we're growing more of own food and can afford to spend a bit extra on the bits we're not producing ourselves. I have to say, though, that they have the most lovely team there. The lady I spoke to about starting a buying group was phenomenally helpful, sent me a pdf of information, wished me a nice weekend (and crucially sounded like she meant it) and generally made me want to place an order there and then!

Supermarkets 1, The Little Guy 0

All hail the mighty Kenwood

As anyone who knows me will no doubt attest, I am a little bit in love with my Kenwood Chef.

 If I had to recommend one piece of kit for an efficient sufficient life, I think it would have to be the Kenwood. I bake bread, cakes, muffins, pitta bread, bagels, biscuits, tiffin cake, meringues, and so on and so on, and every single thing gets mixed in the Kenwood first.

I'd wanted a decent food mixer since I started baking our own bread while bored on maternity leave (before I gave birth, I hasten to add. After the birth the bread baking took a back seat for, ooh, five months or so). I could have bought a cheapo Argos one or something at the time, but decided to be sensible and save up for a decent mixer that would last. A tax rebate this April (too much tax paid due to spending half the year on maternity pay) enabled me to purchase one, finally.

I initially wanted the rather more aesthetically pleasing KitchenAid, but eventually good sense prevailed, and I went with the more versatile and, if reviews and recommendations are to be believed, longer lasting Kenwood Chef. There is a bewildering range of Kenwood mixers available, but only the Chefs have sensible sized motors and allow access to the huge range of accessories, which I really wanted to be able to use at a later date if I chose. I elected not to go for the catering-standard Chef Major (enormous engine, but equally enormous mixing bowl. Not sure it would even have fitted in our tiny kitchen), but didn't want something that wouldn't cope with almost daily use, so went for the halfway house Chef Premier, which has a relatively large motor and can take all but one of the accessories available for the Major.

Older Kenwoods also come up on a daily basis on Ebay, and by all accounts are more than adequate for day to day usage. I've also heard that the older ones are more easily repaired, so perhaps if you're a hardcore self-sufficienter an old one would be better. I chose a newer one partly for ease of getting hold of accessories, partly because I wanted my mixer to last another 20 years rather than risk having one with the best part of its life behind it.

Anyway, the point of this post is not to wax lyrical about the Chef (honest), but to do so about its new accessory! Having done the sums, I discovered that there are certain things that would be no cheaper to make ourselves (like bottling our own tomatoes, unless we were growing enough to have a glut), and some things that would save a packet. Pasta is one of those things - organic pasta is insanely overpriced compared to the ordinary stuff.

So, despite the enormous expense of getting a pasta maker, I reckon that with our current pasta consumption, we'll pay it off in somewhere between two and four years - in terms of subtracting the cost of energy and organic flour and eggs from the price of ready made organic pasta.

There are a couple of different ones available, but I went for this one. I can't tell you how much it pleases me that the little die things that shape the pasta come in their own red, satin lined boxes.

I will, of course, post and let you know how good I am at making pasta as soon as I get five minutes to try it.

In other news, the box it was delivered in has kept Teddy entertained for 27 minutes and counting, so it's already paid for itself in my eyes

For whiter whites... Buy a new washing machine

I am so sick of our crappy washing machine. I use eco washing liquid, which I know means that I am destined to occasionally struggle with stains and whitening whites (any eco tips for keeping clothes and bed linen looking nice are much appreciated), but our machine is really taking the laundry biscuit (yuck, doesn't sound tasty) at the moment.

Whites are coming out semi yellow, and stains are just remaining exactly where they are. I am blaming the machine because I am still using my faithful Lakeland stain remover, and even that isn't getting all the stains out.

Thing is, I don't want to spend a load of money on a new machine when we might move next year to a house with a newer machine, meaning we either have to sell or store a second machine. So it's just a case of pre-soaking anything remotely grubby, I suppose. Or perhaps gritting the teeth and investing in a bottle of killer-persil-daz-whitening-brightening-chemically goodness.

Grubby and green or planet killer clean? Oh, the eternal dilemmas of an eco-worrior.I am so sick of our crappy washing machine. I use eco washing liquid, which I know means that I am destined to occasionally struggle with stains and whitening whites (any eco tips for keeping clothes and bed linen looking nice are much appreciated), but our machine is really taking the laundry biscuit (yuck, doesn't sound tasty) at the moment.

Whites are coming out semi yellow, and stains are just remaining exactly where they are. I am blaming the machine because I am still using my faithful Lakeland stain remover, and even that isn't getting all the stains out.

Thing is, I don't want to spend a load of money on a new machine when we might move next year to a house with a newer machine, meaning we either have to sell or store a second machine. So it's just a case of pre-soaking anything remotely grubby, I suppose. Or perhaps gritting the teeth and investing in a bottle of killer-persil-daz-whitening-brightening-chemically goodness.

Grubby and green or planet killer clean? Oh, the eternal dilemmas of an eco-worrior.

The Jam

Having mentally resolved my sugar dilemma, I made jam. It's really simple recipe, adaptable for pretty much any fruit you might want to make jam from:

1lb fruit
1lb sugar (use less for sweeter fruit)
1/4 pt water
Pectin (optional)

Multiply the above figures up or down according to fruit quantity. If you have a low pectin fruit, like strawberries, you need to add pectin in the form of liquid pectin or lemon juice and pith (I'll find some instructions at some point and add a link here). Googling can usually yield quantities of pectin required for any given fruit.

Before you begin, pop a side plate into the freezer (or fridge if the freezer isn't convenient), wash up your jars (we keep all our jars from mayonnaise, chutney, anything we buy really, and still sometimes have to buy extra), and pop the oven on to about 125 degrees. Put the jars and lids into the oven for a good 10-15 minutes (this can be while you're making the jam, they don't need to cool down before you fill them or anything). Once they're done, turn the oven off and leave them in there for now. It helps to put them all on a baking tray - it makes getting them out when they're roasting hot a lot easier!

I had 3lb 8oz of blackberries and 8oz of apples, which I figured I may as well chuck in:

 
 I think you need to do this before adding the sugar to release the pectin or something. Not entirely sure, but too scared to attempt to alter things! You'll notice I use a jam thermometer, but it's not really necessary, just a nice little indulgence of mine since I plan on making a lot more things like this.

Then added the sugar:

 (Incidentally, that jar cost me all of £1 from a charity shop. I'm rather pleased with it). I only added 3lb sugar to 4lb of fruit, as I prefer my jam a bit tart and the blackberries were quite sweet. It still ended up coming out plenty sweet enough, so I might put in even less next time.

Anyway, the sugar and fruit bubbles away - you need a rolling boil, i.e. still bubbling while you stir. It's usually the maximum heat your hob will manage, but a bit less if you have an uber-hob - for about 10 minutes. Then test a teaspoonful on the side plate - drop it onto the plate, leave it to cool for a few minutes. If the jam makes a skin and begins to set (if you nudge it with your finger the skin should wrinkle), the jam is ready. if not, give it another five minutes and try again.

Once you've got wrinkly jam, bring the jars out of the oven, ladle in the jam, and screw on the lids (keep your hands protected - even the lids are hot!)

Et voila!

 And minimal washing up:

I reckon I put about £2.25 worth of sugar in the whole lot, the blackberries and apples were foraged, and I guess I might have spent 75p on energy (I really have no idea, to be honest). So six jars of beautiful, junk free jam, for under £3. Not bad for 45 minutes work really, is it?