Frugal savings 2016 -week 2

Normally I go to the grocery store on saturday evening so I can pick up some vegetables on sale. We don’t eat meat often so I mostly focus on vegetables. Last Saturday I didn’t go to the store: I have so much food on the shelves so I thought I can skip this week. Then I thought: this is quite a good idea because I want to buy some more handy kitchen supplies. I ordered an universal vacuum sealer to go with my solis vacuum sealer.

I also want to get better organised: I made a start with the shed. I need a better place to place my canning jars, canning supplies, cheese making supplies, candle making supplies.

This weekend I started with the candle making supplies: I collected all the bits and ends of old candles I had. I melted them down for later use in a large tin can. I have white, pink, red and some brown wax. These are the red-ish candles I melted: I also saved some of the wicks from the old candles. I got all the wax bits and pieces from others so the candles I will make are for free.

I am quite happy I started with this huge task of organising the shed. I have still some shelvings in storage which I will use to get the shed more organised. Again no money spend. I need to find a good source for some plastic bins to put my canning jars in.

The other savings will come from:

• cooking from scratch from food storage
• no grocery shopping
• having soup for lunch which I already canned
• bake bread from scratch

 

 

 

New year, new chances

New year, new changes. I have been absent for some time because I have been very busy last year: finishing 2 university courses, trying to get the youngest on track in her first year in highschool, food preservation and of course trying to be as independent as I can. Not all the area’s work out very well (had a big fiasco in my rented allotment) and I am still behind with heaps of laundry. But a new year with a new beginning just started. I have done well the last couple of weeks: fixed my vintage wooden bed, that fell apart, did a lot of decluttering and started a lot of other projects.

This week I hope to do this:

Organisation:

1. Organise desk drawer for laptop and such

2. Organise legumes under the bed storage (under the bed I just repaired)

Fix:

1. Youngest daughter’s bed

Garden:

1. Clean the path way

2. Plant lettuce and other greens

Sewing:

1. Repair some clothes in the clothes-need-repair-basket

Cooking/canning:

1. Make food mostly from the pantry

2. Can apples

3. Dehydrate apples

4. What to do with savoy and red cabbages?

5. Remember to make a soup for lunch from canned goods (today I had tomato soup with crudites to work)

 

 

Frugal savings this week -2015

Not a lot of weekly frugal savings blog posts lately. Unfortunately, because I really like writing about savings, some obvious savings, some more out of the box savings. Weeks just fly by and making a lot yourself just takes a lot of time. I also go weekly to flea markets because it is that time of the year now. I noticed that a lot of less ‘good’ stuff gets to the flea markets, it looks like the older stuff is already been bought and is now getting more rare. I did find some good stuff still:

This week I did my share of pantry cooking:

* I made green lentil/cracked wheat curry with jasmine rice and a salad.
* Some leftover ricotta I turned into an Italian lemon-ricotta cake.
* We had rosemary roasted potatoes in olive oil with canned tomato/bell pepper sauce and some vegetarian ‘meat’.
* Our weekly home made pizza with tomato sauce made from canned tomatoes and all kind of canned toppings like canned peppers and roasted bell pepper. I always make double portion because we can take an extra slice to work or school for lunch.
* I made sour dough bread, our favorite and made another bread with herbs in the Römertopf. All over the world people use clay pot for cooking food. This particular one is a German clay pot used to make all kind of dishes in the oven. You can make all kind of dishes in the Römertopf but it is also wonderful to bake bread. It gives a wonderful crunchy bread.

bread in the Römertopf

Frugal Savings until now -2015

Life has been extremely busy at the moment. I work 4 days  and go to school every friday. Even though I work more hours I don’t have more money to spend. So still continuing with trying to make as much as I can myself: bread, cookies, cakes, meals from scratch, home brought lunches etc.

That is quite a challenge: I had to refind my daily routines which was not an easy task but I am getting there. I get up at 5 in the morning and start my day and chores. Here is a list of the things I did do myself the last weeks and saved some money along the way:

* Made marinated dried tomatoes from home dehydrated tomatoes

* Dehydrated breadcrumbs from leftover bread, lovely over any cheesy bake or casserole in the oven. It gives nice crunch.

* Not really a saving but I made an extra shelf next to my fridge where I keep my 20 kilo of wheat. There was some empty space that I didn’t use so I created a space to put some of my big cast iron pans. I have this extremely small kitchen for someone with a lot of kitchen utensils.

* I made some extra shelves for my books. At the moment a lot of people get rid of their books and I can buy new ones for 50 eurocent or 1 euro per book. Lot’s of very good and informative books. I found one yesterday on Tuscany cooking.

* I have dealt with the pumpkins from last years harvest, dehydrated the flesh and grind them in the kitchen machine. Now I can add the powder in breads and cakes.

pumpkins before dehydration

* Last weekend I got some extra spare time so I went to the local farmer and got 30 liters of milk. I made fresh cheese, yogurt and ricotta.

* I have sorted through all the seeds I have and made a planning for this year’s garden. I hope to be able to sow some seeds this week.

* We made date-coconut balls for snacks.

* Some one gave me 8 Leifheit canning jars which are difficult to find here. I am almost done with organizing my canning jars in the shed.

* We redid the pantry so we could see what kind of products need to be used up soon. I put them on a shelf so I can plan my meals with those products. I don’t like throwing away things. On an average every Dutch person throws out 50 kilo of food per year. I am sure we don’t throw out that much food per person.

Leftover Bean Pâté

Mixed beans

Yesterday we had “captain’s dinner” a somewhat famous Dutch dish. It is a dish with marrow-fat beans and small side dishes like pickles, caramelized apples, bacon, raw diced onions, (Indonesian) peanut butter sauce and small meat balls. We had some beans left so tonight I will be making left-over bean pâté.

1 2/3 cups cooked leftover beans
30 ml oil (olive or sunflower)
½ cup diced onions
½ cup diced carrots
2 cloves of garlic
2 eggs
2 tbsp lemon juice
handful of parsley
1 teaspoon fresh sage
3/4 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven at 350 Fahrenheit. Dice the onions, carrots and garlic (I use a kitchen machine but be careful it will not mush).   Put some oil in the pan and fry the onions, carrots and garlic until glazed.

In the meantime mince your leftover beans with the eggs in your kitchen machine. Add the parsley, sage, salt and pepper, lemon juice and a splash of oil.

Mix in a separate bowl the bean mixture with the onions, carrots and garlic. Pour in baking pan which you lined up with parchment paper. Bake for 30 minutes or until brown on top.

You can eat it warm with a nice salad or put it in the fridge and eat it on home baked bread for lunch.

You can use all kind of leftover beans for this recipes and also try to experiment with different herbs.

Another month just passed.. reasons why I still can

More then a month ago I posted my last post. I work 4.5 days per week and I have been canning a LOT! I leave home at 7 and come back at 5.30. Making dinner, doing the dishes, some other house chores and then checking if the children were still on (school) track: helping with packing their books and other stuff for the day after. Then back to canning and dehydrating. I have to say I am glad most part is just done. When you do much food preservation at one point you really think ‘why am I doing this to myself?’. When that point hit you, you know that it is almost finished as well. The last jars are the ‘most difficult’ jars. The last jars I canned were stewed pears in elderberry syrup and pickled cauliflower.

In between I did three crates full of beans my friend gives me every year for free, I bought 25 kilo of hard pears (to make the stewed pears), 10 celery roots, 4 bunches I pressure canned, 5 I dehydrated, 10 cauliflowers I put up in a mild pickled water.

Last week my parents came over to help me out with organizing the jars, cleaning them. We anchored the open shelving closet to the wall so the heavy jars will not fall on the ground. We will be good, very good this winter.

Also I can add another year to my age. I will write more about the presents I got but this is such a nice one: Beetroots! I still have to do something with them, but will make a start this weekend.

Canning beetroots.

I worked hard the last weeks, didn’t sleep much, but we have lots of beautiful meals during the winter.

Frugal Savings week 35 -2014

It was a busy week, I did a lot of canning (tomatoes and wild peaches) and dehydrating 10 kilo’s of carrots and a couple of kilo of bell peppers.

I was able to buy blueberries on sale (1 kilo for 3 euro) and i bought the remaining 5 kilos. I dehydrated them.

There was one big surprise when I opened the door I found a present from one of my neigbors:

I will make some nice meals from this pumpkin, perhaps can some as well.

Frugal Savings Week 34 – 2014

Sometimes you plan something and it doesn’t work out as you thought it would. I ordered a lot of jars in the beginning of August, thinking they would arrive the end of August. The company of which I ordered, told me I would receive the jars last week. Unfortunately they didn’t keep up their word. But I had already my 90 kilos of organic tomatoes ordered. What to do? I gave some to my mom and sis and kept 60 kilos.

I got the tomatoes and the tomato grower was so nice to give me some ripe and some not so ripe tomatoes. I made 22x 1/2 liter jars of tomato juice. I love taking that with me to work so I made those first. Then I made quarts of tomato juice and I made a couple of liters of hot curry ketchup and roasted ketchup. We love to put that on everything from rice/bean burgers to grilled cheese sandwiches.

I splurged a bit this week and I bought a tomato strainer, finally, after so many years. I am almost done with the tomatoes but what a lot of work that was!

I bought 10 kilo colored carrots 10 euro which I will dehydrate, 20 kilo white grapes 1.80 per kilo (a total of 36 euros) I already dehydrated. We love to eat them as a snack with some raw nuts. I cut up 5 bunches of coriander, bagged it with some olive oil and put it in the freezer. I also bought 20 kilo wild peaches for 24 euro which I shall can in a honey syrup (that is our favorite syrup to can in).

I have been more tired then normal because I am cycling to work now: 25 kilometers back and forth. So getting myself to work at night is a bit difficult. But until now the weather has been wonderful (only one day of heavy rain and I arrived at work soaked). I got my old cassette walkman out of my treasure hunting basket (I put there what I picked up for not a lot of money at flea markets). I bought this Phillips one for only 50 euro cent. Now i can listen to some old cassettes. I want to brush up my Arabic a bit so I am listening to my very old tapes. How much fun is that when I cycle my way home through the polders!

Remember these?

Frugal Savings Week 33 -2014

I am still in a full time canning motion: I canned chickpeas (20x 0,5 liter jars), mixed beans (8x 0,75 liter jars) and red kidney beans (10x 0,5 liter jars). When I went to the supermarket for some small groceries and then I saw them…. strawberries on sale! 1 kilo for 1 euro. I bought 25 kilo. 15 kilo I just canned in a light syrup and I made rose-scented strawberry syrup, strawberry-balsamic vinegar and strawberry butter. Canning is such a  wonderful hobby: it is so nice to experiment with food and ‘cook’ up something nice.

From the strawberry fruit scraps I did a small experiment and made a batch of fruit scrap vinegar. I am wondering how this is going work. The pineapple scrap vinegar turns out great, I made pear and apple scrap vinegar with success in the past before, so I don’t see why this would work. When it doesn’t work out as I hope it will, I can always use the vinegar as a cleaning product. Nothing goes to waste. I like that…

We picked elderberries but there wasn’t a lot left. The weather here has been strange and everything is about 3 weeks early. So I think I missed most of the elderberry season. No elderberry wine this year. What I did pick, I dehydrated. So I can use them in pastry during the winter.

My neighbor gave me another 3 overgrown zucchinis. I found a wonderful recipe to make canned zucchini bread which I am going to try. I know it is not USDA approved, so I will not give the recipe. He also gave me some pumpkins and I when I have more time I will can the pumpkin cubed. I like to have smaller portions of pumpkin on hand.

I bought 60 kilo of organic tomatoes. Unfortunately my jar order didn’t came in yet. So I got a bit less then tomatoes then I wanted and I have 3 boxes that are ripe and ready to can and some less ripe tomatoes so I can can those when the jars come in next week. .

My sis and mom came over for a couple of days and we made pontack sauce (an elderberry sauce), a new sloe gin batch and we made the rest of the zucchinis into a zucchini pickle. My sis went to the supermarket and she saw a sale which she thought I would like: blueberries 3 euro per kilo. She bought what was still on the shelves: 9 kilo. We made 34 jars of blueberries in honey-vanilla syrup and had left some blueberries for blueberry yogurt muffins for Sunday’s breakfast. We had a quite busy couple of days but it was a wonderful time.

This week, I have to go to work again and my children are going back to school. Life is going to turn back to normal? We’ll see, perhaps some canning a long the way.

 

Frugal Savings Week 32 -2014

We returned home and my niece joined us for the last 2 weeks of the holiday. I managed to put all my groceries away and finished with my pantry inventory list. I decided that I needed some more tomato sauce (we use for pizza’s and pasta’s) so I placed an order for 90 kilo tomatoes at the local organic grower. I will pick it up next week. My mom and sis are coming so we will be canning all together.

My niece is a bit of a picky eater but she is brave enough to try the food  I make. I am trying to make up for the strange things she sometimes is served, with other home made goodies she does like.
I made salad with pickled green beans and tomatoes from the garden. She isn’t fund of tomatoes but she did like these tomatoes and also in combination with the salad.
I made stewed pear pie (from canned pears in elderberry syrup), buckwheat pancakes with the rest of the stewed pears, zucchini soup with corn bread (made from home grind corns I dehydrated myself). A while back I bought a German electric wheat grinder. This grinder can grind oily and harder kernels then my other grain mill which is grinding with stones. The smell and taste was incredible so different then bought corn meal. We had bean burgers with salad and fries.
I baked sweet potatoes in the oven and we ate that with feta cheese, home made dried tomatoes in olive oil, olives and oregano and fresh parsley from the garden.
Of course we had home made pizza: the girls like it mostly simple: home made tomato sauce, pesto, olives, mozzarella and grated home made cheese.

My niece and my youngest daughter have been picking the last blackberries. We made some more blackberry-apple leathers. We rolled them up and my niece is taking some home with her. When I told her they were all hers and she doesn’t have to share with her brothers and sister because she picked the berries so religiously every day and helped with making the leathers. She was very happy. Normally I wouldn’t say that but she is going to high school this year and an healthy snack policy is in place. The amount of blackberries-apple mush wasn’t enough to fill 2 dehydrators so I made some extra apricot-strawberry-thyme fruit leathers. I also made some gooseberry fruit leathers. They are wonderful and will be lovely snacks.

We also went out to gather elderberries. I am making pontack sauce and some elderberry tincture for my mom.

I dehydrated the papayas I bought and also dehydrated the small black papaya seeds. I had some extra figs from my sister’s garden and I dehydrated them in slices.

The hot sauce I started last week is now fermenting away and I will can the sauce next week.

The pine apple vinegar I started before I went on a holiday is really going well. I hope to be able to bottle them soon.

The peppermint I harvested before our holiday and hang drying is put away in bags so we can make easy teas this winter. Also I like to sprinkle some dried peppermint in my red lentil soup.

Hamburger meat was on sale and I bought 4 kilo. That is how much I can can in one evening. I don’t have room in my refrigerator nor in my 3 freezer drawers.
I spend 20 euros for 4 kilo of meat and I have 10 pint jars. The costs of one jar is 2 euro’s. I make small meat balls and I love to add a lot of oregano so it tastes a bit like kofte.

We picked some small wild plums and made that into juice and then used the juice to make wild plum syrup. We use syrups to mix it with water and have a lovely fruity drink.

We picked nettles to make some tea so my niece can take that home as well. I also picked some wild pears, not much because most of the pears are too high to pick. I made an Indian chutney from the pears. I love to spice up simple food with lovely pickles, chutneys and relishes.
My neighbor gave me 2 more zucchinis and when life gives you zucchinis, you make cucumber pickle, of course. That means that I used the zucchinis in stead of cucumbers when making my cucumber pickle recipe and they turned out lovely! I really like to eat all kind of pickles, chutneys, relishes and piccalilli on home made bread with some butter. No need for anything else.

I buy potatoes at a farmers house, whose girl happens to be my youngest daughter’s BFF (that is what they call each other). I ordered 50 kilo’s for my sister, 20 kilo for my mom and I bought 20 kilos for myself. We pay 30 euro cent per kilo at the moment.

I placed another big, big order of canning jars (Weck jars only this time) to be able to can more. I am not sure what will happen with the prices next year. I did notice that prices secretly going up: they just put less in a bag and put on a higher price. So I like to can as much as I can when the prices are low. A friend will bring me a garbage bag (!) full of green beans, so I will be canning a LOT of green beans.