Homestead happiness

Some people may have a romantic image of what it means to have a homestead. I know I do at times. The reality is not quite so rosy red. There's a lot of work involved. And maintenance.

At the moment I have a bricklayer working on the rear end of my stable. He is prepping for the carpenter to put in some new doors and windows. One of the doors had all but disintegrated and the other wasn't too hot either. The windows were perhaps not too bad - but plexi instead of real glass.

The brickwork isn't finished with this. Around the beginning of September the bricklayer will be back to remove crumbling mortar and refinish the walls on the outside (bar the parts which got repaired some years ago). I know this is necessary work, but it does mean unforeseen expenses for this year, not to mention a lot of mess and noise and blokes running around all day.





So perhaps I should focus on some of the good parts. Friday I had my parents around to help harvest my cherries. There was rain on the horizon, and ripe or almost ripe cherries do not handle large rainfalls well. They start to rip open and then all the insects get ready for a party. We managed to get over 11 kgs of cherries picked. Which was pretty good. There were still a good number of kilos left, perhaps another ten or so more, but the rain has been playing merry havoc, and there's no more cherry harvesting this year.


























And then there's the whole matter of what you do with 11 kgs of cherries. By the time we had finished picking I had already stuffed myself full of them, so I wasn't in the mood for eating any as such.





Instead I used three kilos for making cherry mush, as I call it. Basically applesauce, just made with cherries and mashed through a sieve. Which makes for good exercise. And a lot of hard work. Mum took a few kilos home, and I gave another to a friend. And the rest got tossed in the steam juicer, or Mehu Maija as we call it, and turned into cherry juice. I didn't bother using any sugar at all - last year mum put in some and made it almost too sweet. At the moment I still have some left in the juicer, and some mush in the fridge, but the rest is now in the freezer.




This of course leads me on to another of the joys, or is it woes, of homesteading. Freezer space. Which I am running short on now. And this is before apple season has started. And mum has now informed me that she has ordered a whole lamb from a mutual friend. I think I'm going to have to get that second freezer I've been talking about this coming month. Which will provide me a few more headaches and decisions; where should I put it, which freezer do I actually want, another bill to pay.

And in spite of these challenges and issues which need taking care of, I wouldn't want to pack up and move into a more urban house. I may not always find it amusing to have to deal with these things, but the pride and joy and sense of fulfillment which comes of eating things which I have grown myself keeps me on. I may never get to being totally self-sufficient, but  that's okay too. At least I am trying. And not just dreaming about it.

I wish I had a picture of the cake mum made Sunday. She baked the cake part using my eggs, and then the fruit in it was partly from my garden, and partly from theirs. Cherries, raspberries, red currants, white red currants, black currants. There were a few store-bought strawberries too. And the flour, sugar, and creme fraiche/sour cream were bought too. But half of the ingredients for that cake were home-grown. I'm afraid I just gobbled up my part of it before taking pics. Too tasty to bother with that.

(And in case you are curious - I have now succeeded in getting pics from my phone onto my blog - but it isn't as smoothly as I suspect it could be. I will be experimenting more. But this is a step forward from last.)

What's in your fridge? 23.6.15

I am currently at that annoying stage in fridge time, where you are starting to run out of things to use for making meals, but you are leaving for a holiday lasting several days in just a week's time so you don't really want to stock up on things which will then go bad.

And I have discovered I can't even get my mum to use up some of the things.

So this is the state of my fridge now. And yes, those red cartons are all 1/2 litre cream cartons. Two of which are decidedly sour. I really should use them tomorrow for cooking leftover bulgur and assorted seeds and let my chickens snack on that. At least, they love it when I use buttermilk or old yoghurt, so I'm counting on this working.

There's some leftover pizza in there, which will do nicely for tomorrow's supper. Which reminds me - lunch tomorrow is going to be tricky as I'll be out of the house.

The large bottle in the bottom of the door is elderflower cordial - from two years ago. Mum has refused to make any this year, because nobody drinks it. That's mostly because I can't remember I have any. This should make a difference, having it next to the milk.

That strange purpley/fuschia thing in the door is not for me - that's a snack for Ramses. I only give him 1/3-1/2 of the soft food sachets at a time, and store the rest in the fridge. Then I give him the remainder and pour hot water over it to warm it up as treats. I can't afford giving him a whole sachet at a time - it is a bit much for one helping, and once it has been in his dish for some hours, he refuses to eat it up.

I honestly have no idea what I'm eating this week. Partly because of the random items in there, partly because my brain is already seriously in travel jitter mode, and getting the last things done before leaving, and so therefore cooking is ... erratic.

Danish strawberries have hit the shops now though, and mum is very fond of buying and bringing me some, so I am getting a good bit of my nourishment that way. And I am not eating them all with sugar and cream - I am eating them nude, so to speak. All of which isn't having much effect on my fridge.

Veggie box end of season and garden bake-up

I got my last veggie box of the season two days ago. I did take pics of it, but never got around to posting. I was tired after being away on a short trip, and then Wednesday was not the best of days, so I opted for giving my body and mind time to relax and recharge. I knew I needed to be strong for today, because this evening the local garden society is having our yearly garden walk. This always ends with cake and coffee/tea, and I had volunteered to make a couple of cakes.

Currently the cake part of a lemon roll is cooling, I have the filling for it ready, and then I opted for some oat cookies with nuts and chocolate chips, which are all done and ready in their containers. I have been fortunate enough that mum offered to make the third cake. I might have been able to make one myself, but then I think I wouldn't be able to go this evening.

But this all doesn't have much to do with veggies.

This is more like it. What really struck me about this picture was that for a bunch of greens, there's not a lot of green in there. There's the rocket leaves on the right, and the top of the fennel on the left, and the leaves of the kohlrabi and cauliflower (although you can't see those), but the rest is white and different shades of red.

There's two beetroots, a garlic, three red onions, and a whole bunch of cherry tomatoes apart from the aforementioned veg. And I will be perfectly honest with you guys; I still haven't got a clue how I am going to eat them up.

I have been so focused on the cakes and the walk this evening, that meal-planning has been non-existant. So I will have to leave you hanging on that for a few days more. On the other hand, perhaps some of you have good ideas for me. Especially the rocket and the cauliflower are going to be problematic.

So I'll do a trade with you guys. Give me some suggestions, and I'll reward you with pics of cookies and cakes and views from the three gardens we are going to visit this evening (hopefully it won't rain). And now I better go check up on the roll, once it is cooled I can spread the filling.

What's in your fridge? 9 June

I guess it is confession time. I am not doing too well. There have been a number of issues I have had to deal with, and that means other things get dropped. And my diet has been among the casualties. Admitted, it could be worse. I'm not resorting to frozen pizzas or take-away, and I have been getting care packages from my mum.

Still, my fridge is not exactly neat.

I am getting a bit worried about the state of some of the veg. Especially as I will be off for the weekend. I am rather worried that the contents of both the saucepan and the large bowl are only fit for the rubbish bin. As is the leftover on the plate.

However, the amount of food I have had to bin because it had died, or in some cases, become even more alive, has gone down. Almost dramatically. The focus on flashing my fridge every fortnight is proving to be beneficial.

I am also getting into decreasing the number of jars. Now, this isn't an exercise in making the contents of the fridge be as small as possible. Especially as I actually have a rather large fridge. The exercise is to only have things I actually use. One part of this means identifying what are must-haves, items without which I cannot exist. Or at least will cause discomfort.

I think my number one item has to be milk. Without milk, there will be no drinking of coffee. Without coffee, there will be no brain activity. (OK, so I can drink coffee without milk or cream, but then I need ridiculous amounts of sugar.)

Currently orange juice is probably a solid second. I am once more in the habit of a glass every morning. This is no longer just because I like it. It is because iron gets taken up by the body easier with vitamin c, and as I am taking those darn supplements, I may as well do my best at getting the most out of them. This means a slightly convoluted morning routine, because coffee hampers the intake of iron. So I try to get up around seven, and then take my iron and juice, and then wait for the 30 or so minutes to pass before I can start preparing coffee and breakfast. When I oversleep, things get complicated.


I think my various liquid stocks are my third must-haves. Even though it has been a while since I used them. But they are so good and handy for making so many dishes. Instant flavour, in case whatever it is I'm preparing turns out to be bland. Mind you, I did realize how much more expensive they are compared to the cubes, so I have started to buy those instead. Not all flavours are available in cube form though.

I think I could pretty much survive for weeks without the other items in my fridge, but these three would mean disaster before long. What do you consider to be your must-haves in the fridge?

Veggie Box Tales: 3. June

And this time it is for real. I have the veg sitting on my stove.

And once again I have been swapping a bit with my mum. There was a head of white cabbage in my box, which I traded for two spring onions and three carrots. The rather somber looking stuff at the back is red kale, then the spring onions, carrots and two zucchini. They are flanked by spinach and broccoli and in front are toms, garlic and two limes.

I am contemplating having the spinach for supper, with some leftover pizza sauce and mozzarella, perhaps a wee bit of ham. I still haven't decided whether or not to have pasta with it. On the other hand, the spinach would go well with some feta. I could probably use the kale instead for this evening.

I never got around to having the fennel from last box as the toms and zucchini were eaten without it, so this could be the week when that combo happened. And the carrots, spring onion and lime could be used for some sort of Asian inspired concoction. I do have soba noodles and miso paste.

So, a day late, but full of yummy options.

Veggie Box Tales: 2 June

And another fortnight has passed and it is once more time to see what goodies are in store for me. Except ... I have to wait a day more.

This is one of those things which probably only happens when you live in a remote place. The lady in charge of the veggie boxes was phoned by the freight guy and told her supplies wouldn't be coming today. He had too much other stuff. So we'll be getting our veg tomorrow.

This means you guys will be getting an extra post this week. I won't be cheating you of the veg pic.

Instead I'll try to answer a question you might have been asking yourself: Why is Otte blathering on about veggie boxes and fridges every Tuesday?

Well, one reason is accountability. If I show you guys pics of the fridge and of my veg, I'm opening up for comments about how the fridge needs cleaning, or "why is that jar still in there? We've seen it for seven months now", and "did you actually eat those veggies?". Which means I have a stick, or is it a carrot, to try to keep the fridge in some sort of decent nick and to get those veggies down in my stomach to do some good.

Another reason is that I might serve as inspiration. I have learned that fridges sometimes do act as time capsules in other homes, and that other people may also have trouble eating all their greens. If I show you guys my efforts, perhaps you will find it easier to get to work with your own.

Thirdly, if I share ideas on how to prepare veg which I like, you may be tempted to share your methods with me. And although there is no guarantee that we share the same tastes, if we never try out new recipes and ideas, we'll never be able to broaden our culinary horizons.

I will admit I have also considered doing a freezer show and tell sometime. It seems my fridge exposing means I am keeping the fridge much cleaner and tidier than usual. But hey, that's a good thing!

There are a couple of more aspects to the concept of "foody Tuesday". My hoarding hasn't only been limited to things, it has also to a certain degree included food items. Frozen veg at 3-for-the-price-of-2? Hoard. Jars of yummy stuff at buy-1-get-1-free? Hoard. Frozen fish at save-x-Dkr-this-week? Hoard.

And then I forget about all the stuff floating about at the bottom of the freezer till some years later I start pulling out bags which are years past their "use before" date, and which, on some of the occasions where I have tested them, have felt like and tasted like eating cardboard. So much for those savings!

So flashing my food stores will mean I get better at using up the items, and toss less, and ultimately waste less money and food. Not bad.

And then there has been an added reason for this series. I have been seeing a dietician for some years now. She has now got a new job. And there doesn't appear to be any replacement coming to fill in her place. So I am now back to trying to figuring out this "eat healthy" all by myself again. At least I know more about it now. But having you guys along for the ride will make me feel less alone. I just hope you will want to stick around. And if I can help you guys back, well, all the better.

So that's why I'll be blathering on every Tuesday about food. And on occasion, even Wednesdays. Tune in tomorrow for the real unveiling of the veggie box.

Veggie Box Tales 19 May

A fortnight has passed, and it is time for a new box of veg. Hooray! It is almost like Christmas. Almost. See, I do actually get an email on the Monday telling me what's in the box. But still.

So, this is the goodies all lined up.

There's some tomatoes and a cucumber, a zucchini, fennel, some Jerusalem artichokes, a cabbage called "spidskål" i.e. pointed cabbage which a quick google tells me is a member of the white cabbage family, spinach, two lumps of ginger and a fresh garlic.

Now, actually the one ginger and the garlic were not in my box. Instead, there was a head of cauliflower in there. I have ... a complicated relationship with cauliflower. So mum traded me the extra ginger (my parents have a complicated relationship with ginger) and the garlic for it. Dad was looking forward to having cauliflower with the pork cutlets they were having today. I am looking forward to stuffing something with ginger.

I haven't munched my way through all the veg from a fortnight ago, though I admit I bought some toms to supplement. I do still have the lemongrass, which will now be paired up with some of the ginger, some garlic, soy, and other fun ingredients. A friend has given me a recipe for pointed cabbage, which is basically chopping it finely and then making an Asian vinaigrette of hoi sin sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. I think half of that head will be used up for that, and then perhaps I'll do a ginger/garlic/lemongrass/soy dressing for the other half as an experiment.

The spinach will probably find its way to a frying pan this evening, along with some onion and garlic, and some of the feta-type cheese in the fridge. The zucchini and the toms and part of the fennel will either make me a soup or a pasta sauce. I still have the kohlrabi and part of the celeriac from the previous box, and a few carrots, they could be paired up with the Jerusalem artichokes as oven roasted veg and then I could dive into the freezer for some steaks. I should have ostrich and kangaroo in there.

I am also wondering if I should try to cook some of the ginger in a syrup and preserve it. I had a jar of ginger in a syrup on my Ingredients shelf of the fridge for some years which was awesome for impromptu Chinese meals, and I finished it up some years ago. I miss it.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day for me, and by the time I get home, I'll be hungry and tired, which is never a good combo. I think I'll chop up half of the cabbage tonight and prepare it, so when I come home, there's at least something ready to eat.

Tip for people who have trouble with eating veg: soy and anything Asian style makes everything better! It's done wonders for me.

Crash and Burn

So.

Today I had planned on bringing you a post about the Cluck Brigade. That is, about my chickens. That is not going to happen. Because yesterday in the late afternoon I experienced one of my crash and burn episodes.

What is a crash and burn episode? Basically, it is when I have been doing pretty okay up to when suddenly, out of the blue, I'm no longer doing okay. Where my brain just ceases to function, and small things suddenly turn into huge obstacles, and slightly challenging tasks turn into impenetrable mountain ranges.

There is only one thing to do when that happens, and that is to accept that your brain is not going to be up to anything more that day, and immediately cancel all plans for the rest of that day, and just try to make it through.

Often this means that the next day will have to be slow. Not necessarily nothing going on, but I need to make sure there's lots of time to relax and recover.

So, why do these crash and burn events happen? Well, my guess is that I have probably been overdoing things during the previous days. Perhaps not enough to notice it. But enough to be adding up on an invisible calculator, and then at some point, BOOM! Crash and burn, baby, crash and burn.

I suspect that this particular incident has its roots in my very productive Friday morning where I think I managed to run four or five errands and go into four different shops. I did take the rest of the Friday off, and had a slow Saturday, but I probably should have been slower the following days too.

The good thing about this episode is that it has been a while since the previous one, and that I was actually able to realize I was in the process of crashing and was able to catch myself before burning. Also, I was pretty fortunate to have started prepping for supper rather early, because this meant I was more or less done with the cooking when it happened. So I had a decent supper. I have a small stock of miso sachets and soba noodles or instant noodle packets for times like these. Because feeding myself becomes one of the huge obstacles during a crash and burn.

So yesterday I had to give up hopes of writing about the chickens and finding pics, and also cancel my participation in the local garden society board meeting. Not least because it involved a long car drive, and I do NOT want to be behind the wheel at these times. Our traffic is not massive, but I wouldn't trust my reaction skills if anything out of the ordinary happened. And my brain is still not up to hunting for pics and writing non-rambling posts. So you'll have to wait for next week for a formal introduction to the chickens, and settle for me rambling.

Veggie box tales: Getting back in

Once more I am subscribed to a veggie box. I get the small box, which comes every other week. I originally started off with the large one, but that was way too much for me to eat my way through. Even the small box can provide a challenge for me. It takes effort to focus on my diet, and the past months I un-subscribed, because I knew I wouldn't be able to cope with it. Now things seem to be easing up and so I am subscribed again. And getting excited about it.

And today, Tuesday 5th, I got my first batch of veggies after a break of several months.

Actually, that wasn't the exact contents of my box. There was a head of lettuce in it, and I don't really do lettuce. However, mum gets the big box, and knows about me and lettuce, and she likes the stuff, and she offered to trade it for the bunch of carrots. And carrots I can do. So out with the lettuce, in with the carrots. That trade also added more colour to the lot.

So, what is in there?

There's a bag of kale at the top, then a kohlrabi, the carrots, leeks and a celeriac. Below those there's parsnips, onions, a cucumber, and then finally a stalk of lemongrass, a chili, lemon and a fresh garlic.

And now for the fun part - figuring out how to eat them all.

I suspect I'll be using the kale to make a Danish dish called "grønlangkål" which is basically cooked kale in a white sauce. I am considering using part of the celeriac, and one each of the leeks, parsnips, and onions, and a few carrots to pop in a soup pot along with one of the chickens in my freezer. The kohlrabi will probably prove the trickiest of the lot. Along with the chili.

I'll be spending the rest of the day cooking up a meal plan for the next week or two, and figure out how to get through these. One of the reasons I started subscribing to a veggie box was to make it easier to get more veg in my diet. And meal planning in general helps me to eat better.