Bartering the gluts!

I have spent this evening making plum chutney with some lovely plums given to me by Mr C's boss, we will be sending back some courgettes from our garden and a jar of the end product.

Earlier on I managed to get some lovely windfall cooking apples from a neighbour in exchange for some cherry tomatoes. These will be added to our rather large courgettes/marrows to make yet more chutney!

We have exchanged some more courgettes for runner beans from our other neighbours. I just love this time of year, everyone else who is growing food and has gluts is as eager as we are to swap some of it for something they are not growing in quantity themselves. This way we all have a good variety of fruit and veg and have a lovely chat about how we are going to use the items up, swapping recipes as we go. The kitchens are busy and some lovely smells are emanating from the kitchen windows. Who needs the supermarket! (well maybe for the vinegar and sugar!)

I came in at about £30 over budget on my grocery challenge, we had visitors, I will try again this month to keep to £150, also only managed 8/10 no spend days! I am still going to try for 15 no spend days this month, today was nsd 1/15

Everythings growing in the garden!

Even the Cockapoo! I guess at 13 months she won't be a puppy for much longer, try telling her that though! She is so full of fun and loves to play fetch, we alternate between pulling up a weed and throwing a ball!

We didn't get an organic veg box delivery today, either they messed up or I ticked the wrong box probably the latter! Never mind we saved £12.80 and have enough fruit and veg in the freezer plus things are starting to grow in the garden and some of these things are edible, including some green peppers - yum! the rhubarb has gone mad, the courgettes are giving me a couple every other day and I am picking about half a dozen tomatoes a day. We are raw beginners though as you can probably see from the photos, more luck than judgement but we are learning. Hopefully next year we will have the main vegetable garden up and running.

Another no spend day and I have saved(rescued) 6 sweet potatoes from the bin which are about to be made into soup using Arkonites recipe. I had to throw 1 away though as it was beyond help, must make sure to remove produce from any plastic packaging as it doesn't keep so well, I normally use old flour bags to store potatoes in and that works really well.
My grocery challenge (www.moneysavingexpert.com old style board is brilliant for support for this challenge) this month is to stick to £150.00 for the month - so far £82 spent so £68 for the rest of the month and I haven't started on the lentils yet! :)

Home grown lunch

Early days yet and I was late starting the garden but today I harvested a few spinach leaves, baby rocket leaves, thinned out spring onions and radishes and some tomatoes which made me a good lunch with the addition of some left over black olives, cheddar cheese cubes (no feta) a drizzle of olive oil, lemon juice and some snipped basil leaves. Very tasty, easy and almost free.

Another no spend day!

1st harvest

It's not much but boy does it feel good to bring into the kitchen something we have grown ourselves. They seem to taste nicer too!

Roll on the rest of the home grown produce!

20 days of changes!

It's been 20 days since I started this blog and what have I changed?

Well for starters I put myself on a reduced grocery budget (£150 for the month) and lived out of the cupboards and freezers. We had some interesting meals this way but at the end of the month we had enough money for me to make a bulk order (£47) on some organic beans and pulses and some oats and soya mince (all regular standbys apart from the chickpeas - have to get used to using these!) I should have enough to last a few months anyway. With the residue of what I would normally have spent I bought a Remoska which should save me 80% electricity over using the electric oven. I cooked up a (happy meat) roast chicken in it last night and it was lovely and moist, will definately do that again.

We have also added another vegetable bed and planted up some runner beans, courgettes and spinach. The digging goes on though as more beds are planned. The greenhouse is full of tomato plants with a promising amount of fruit already and Mr C has planted up some pepper plants. We are very much beginners in this field though and have much to learn.

We are using the library more and the only books I have bought were the bargain bags from the church fete which included one treasure - a 1964 edition of Good Housekeeping Look and Cook which includes the GH childrens cook book that Mum used to teach me to cook! Mainly rock cakes, flapjacks and jammy buns! Ah good memories are priceless!

I have started to knit again, easy stuff so far - dishcloths using cotton yarn from our market and charity shops, so useful and cheap. I have yet to dust off the sewing machine, that is next on the list.

Entertainment is now a 50p or less film on video (they are so cheap now) from the charity shops or boot sales, there are so many films out there that I haven't seen so this will keep us going for a while and much cheaper than renting dvd's. Barbecues in the back garden with family and friends are top of our list at this time of year and hopefully we will soon be able to provide home grown salads.

The main thing I have learned is to stay away from the shops as much as possible and to avoid shopping as a sport/hobby, I now look at what I have and make do!