Missing Fun In The Snow

I come from a family that ski's and this year for obvious reasons I am not joining them.  
While skiing can be an expensive sport my family have always done it as cheaply as possible with second hand gear that is handed down through the generations (one pair of kids ski boots lasted over 25 years and were second hand to start with), shared ski suits (some that were even home made), gloves knitted by my Nan and shared goggles, packed lunches taken with us every day, early bird season passes where family members knew they had enough days off to make the most of them and passes as gifts for birthdays instead of other items.

As a family we have been lucky that my Nan, who taught us all to ski and skied until she was 85, brought a time share near both the mountain  and on the shore of lake Taupo back in the 1980's.  Ever since she has been entitled to 4 weeks per year and she normally books 2 weeks in winter and 2 weeks in trout fishing season (another family activity).
Now that my Nan is no longer skiing she books the 2 weeks in winter then leaves it to her grandchildren (who now all have children of their own who are learning to ski) to organise between themselves who is going to stay in the timeshare on what days .

Nan in all her gear ready to get going

Here are some photos of our trip to the mountain last year with my brother and his family.

Hubby and I enjoying our day

Hubby snowboarding for only his second time

Check out the weather, magic.

My brother and 2 of my neices having some fun.

Hubby looking after my youngest niece who was not sure about it all

My brother, his wife and their 3 girls

I can't wait to be back in New Zealand so I can ski more often although I might need to take a babysitter with me for the next few years.

Home Made Fabric Baby Wipes And Washers

Well we are in the final countdown to the arrival of our first baby who we are currently calling "Peanut" and I am trying to organise the last few things that I think we will need.
To be honest it is hard to know what we will and won't use as we have quite different ideas and ideals about consumption and waste compared to some of our friends and family and this translates over to babies as well so asking others is not yielding the information we are looking for..

As first time parents we are some what unsure how things are going to go, how we will manage and what areas of our lives we will feel the pressure with everything else we will have going on in terms of our move to New Zealand.

One of the things I was determined to get ready for Peanuts arrival was some baby washers and baby wipes.  
In the parenting info and sample packs you get at midwife appointments and on lots of parenting websites I kept seeing lists of "Must Haves For Baby" Baby only washers and towels. What a load of rubbish.  I do not have to be an expert to know there is no need for a baby to have its own set of hooded towels and washes made from extra soft cotton.  Yes I want to use soft cotton on my baby but I do not need to buy one specifically marketed at babies.

I am also not a great fan of disposable baby wipes for change time.  It is not just the chemicals that might be getting wiped all over my baby (have you seen how well those things clean dirt off things?) but I have also seen that disposable wipes get used for cleaning more than baby bottoms.
For me personally I just do not want to be creating extra rubbish or spending money on single use items.  I am not saying I will never use disposable baby wipes as I have been given some eco wipes and have some samples of commercial brands but these will be in my nappy bag for emergency use not daily use.

So I have just spent a few hours over the weekend making some wash cloths and wipes.
I had half an old single flannelette sheet and an old fitted flannelette sheet that had already been mended a few times and was no longer usable as a sheet.
The half an old single flannelette sheet was folded in half and then cut into squares approximately 20 cm square.  I did a zigzag stitch around the edges to join the two layers and stop the fraying.  I ended up with 12 lovely soft wash cloths that will be used for baby bath time.
The old fitted flannelette sheet had so many holes in the middle and was worn really thin so I just used the outside area.  I removed the elastic edging which surprisingly had not failed, and was able to get 24 squares approximately 30 cm square.  These are going to be used as baby wipes so were best left as a single layer with just a zigzag stitch around the edges to stop fraying.

Single layer wipes and double thickness striped washers.

I am really happy with the result and since the fabric has been washed many times already they are beautifully soft but the proof will be in the using.  The different colours will make it easy to know which is which, meaning that the wipes will never be used as washers and will be washed along with nappies not other washing.  I am now looking at an easy home made solution to wet the baby wipes and have seen a couple of recipes that use coconut oil, essential oil, pure soap, water and vitamin E oil as a preservative.  If anyone has a recipe they have used, made or tried that they were happy with please let me know.

What kind of wipes did/do you use for your kids?

It's Time To Update The Budget

Do you budget?  What kind of budgeter are you?

By that I mean do you:

a) Plan out all of your spending, saving and commitments and then break these amounts down to fit into your pay cycle so that every pay a little bit is put away for all the different things?
b) Do you put away regular savings and then just pay you bills as they come along knowing that you generally earn more than you spend so it just works it's self out?
c) Do you live budget free?

Until I decided to go back to Uni I was definitely in category b)  
For me this meant that I put away regular amounts of savings, paid bills such as power, insurances, charity bequests and the mortgages by installments and just paid other large expenses like car registration, car servicing and holidays out of savings when they came along.  I also had no set budget for things like groceries, entertainment, gifts, celebrations or treats.
I used to know someone who used an envelope system and every week a little money would go into each envelope and would later be used to pay bills.  I tried this for a while but hated having lots of cash lying around.



Combined with my decision to go back to Uni I have also elected to cut back my hours at work so this means if I want to be able to keep up with all of my savings and financial commitments I needed to look at my budget and make some changes.

To start with I downloaded the Excel version of this budget planner provided by the government.  It is easy to use and allows you to indervidualise it and gives you an ongoing tally of what is left each month.

I started by inputting all of my projected income (based on my reduced hours) and expenses to work out how much I was going to have to left or would be short by.
After doing some quick sums I knew that I had to cut some of my expenses.

These are some of the things I have done to reduce my expenses:
I cut a regular donation to a charity.  I have supported them for 5 years and I feel no guilt from stopping the payment now.
I have reviewed our insurances and have reduced out building and contents insurance sums insured as they have crept up.
I have reviewed our home phone plan.
I have not renewed one of my magazine subscriptions

We don't tend to go out a lot and our family only does gifts at Christmas time so I was not too worried about if I was overspending in these areas.
I do not have any credit card debt and have a good amount of savings (but I do not want to tap into this) so I still need to look at other ways of saving a few more dollars other wise I will have to reduce my savings.

One of the biggest revelations was when I reviewed all of our grocery receipts for the last few months and this looks like an area I can make a big saving, but more about that tomorrow.

So when/why did you last review your budget?
Do you have any great tips for reducing expenses?

Making And Using Master Stock

Master Stock is a key ingredient in Chinese cooking and this simple braising liquid adds an immense depth of flavour to meals and best of all it is an extremely frugal way of adding flavour.

Master Stock is basically a rich flavoursome stock used for poaching meat and poultry and is widely used across China.  The spices add a distinctive flavour and the soy sauce adds a deep colour.  The additional  benefit of this stock is that you use it over and over again and every time you use it the flavour will develop and improve.

It is best to use a different stock for different types of meat to avoid contamination but I mainly use mine for chicken so it is not an issue.  After you use the stock all you do is bring it back to the boil skim the surface, strain it through a fine sieve in to a clean freezer safe container.  Cool ad then freeze until you need it again.

Making Master Stock

8 Cups of Water
1 Cup Soy Sauce
1 Cup Shaoxing Wine (Chinese cooking wine)
125 gm Palm Sugar
4 Cloves f Garlic
1/2 Cup Sliced Ginger
1 Carrot roughly chopped
1 Stick of celery roughly chopped
6 Green Shallots/Spring Onions roots trimmed off
4 Star Anise
1 Cinnamon Stick

Place all ingredients in a stock pot and bring to the boil then simmer for 30 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse.  
You can either cool and store until you are ready to use it or use it straight away.

The other day I used mine to poach the last of our home killed roosters and the meat was lovely, tender and moist and not at all tough and stringy.

I did mine in the slow cooker and I added another carrot, an onion and some extra ginger along with the chicken.

It was very tasty and I am sure it has added a whole lot more flavour to the stock.

Have you ever used master stock?  How do you use it?

Using Spices For Frugal Flavour

When it comes to turning a few basic ingredients into something spectacular with barely any cost at all spices are your go to guys in the kitchen.

I love all the different colours of spices

People often say that they don't like spicy food but what they really mean is that they do not like 'heat'.  
Spicy and heat are not the same thing and to say you do not like spice is almost like saying you do not like flavour.  You also need to remember that chilli's range in their heat intensity from mildly hot to off the charts hot.  Spice and chilli can be a marriage made in heaven but many dishes can be cooked with very little or no chilli at all and still be delicious.

I have a really good range of spices in my pantry and I use them for both sweet and savoury dishes.  We both enjoy ethnic foods with strong flavours from different parts of the world and are particully fond of Indian, Thai and Middle Eastern foods.  Spices are not expensive to buy and as long as you store them correctly they will last a long time (although the flavour will diminish a bit 

Some of my spices and dried herbs.

If you are new to using spices or need some tips on which spices to try with which meats here are some of my suggestions:

Lamb
For me cumin is the go to spice for lamb but you can also use coriander, sumac, paprika and cardamon as well as the spices listed in the mixes below.  There are a couple of spice blends that are great with lamb, Ras el Hanout which is a Moroccan blend and Baharat a Lebanese blend that often includes nutmeg, paprika, cloves, cassia, allspice, cardamon, pepper and sometimes mint and chilli.
Basic Spice Rub for Lamb Chops: Dry roast some cumin seeds until they are just fragrant and grind them then add some sumac and salt.  Rub into the chops and grill. You can also grind cardamon seeds with salt and use that as a rub.

Pork
Pork and fennel go hand in had but I am also a fan of smoked paprika and oregano with salt as a rub and caraway seeds add an interesting flavour.

Beef
All spice and juniper makes a great addition to any sort of stew.  Cumin, paprika coriander and ginger all add interesting flavours to steak.

Chicken
Cinnamon and allspice go really well with chicken as does fenugreek. A great marinade for chicken is preserved lemon, ground coriander and oil all mashed together and rubbed into the meat.

Fish
Aniseed type flavours work well with  fish so try fennel and star anise combined with different citrus. Turmeric and saffron and paprika all work well with fish as well as imparting their colour to the fish.

There are so many different spices out there and it is all a matter of taste so try new combinations and if you find one you like write it down so you can use it again.  

Do you have any favourites spice combinations?

A Latchy Link Up

The other day Linda posted about all the different latches at her place and I thought it was such a great thing to post about.
Like Linda we have cone up with a few free, recycled and creative latches.

There are the chicken pen gates
Gate 1

The bolt on this came from something else and we bent it then added it to our home made gate

Gate 2

This is an actual gate chain but we have modified the top if a star picket (metal fence post)
to make it so it can latch over

Gate 3

The rope latch

Gate 4

Another rope latch on another home made gate

The gate into the back paddock which is also where we bring in the fire wood after driving through the paddocks.

Another home made gate and an old gate chain that is wired to the gate and held
in place by a carabina

The gate into the neighbours paddock

This is just a wire loop that holds a wire gate to the post by looping over the top

The gates between the paddocks
Gate 1

Another gate chain that has a carabina attached.  For a quick shut of the gate it is loop over the wire loop
but you can also lock the carabina through the chain.

Gate 2

This is what is called a cocky gate latch

The side gate

A simple s hook and a bit of chain does the trick here

There are also a few gates with proper gate latches on them but over all very few of our gate latches have been purchased and they all do the job just fine.

When doing this I also noticed that we have a lot of home made gates but I think that is a whole different post.

What sort of locks and latches do you have at your place?

Reducing Our Winter Power Bill

Throughout winter we had our fire place burning almost 24 hours a day.  The main reason it does not go out is the fact that I work from home and when you are sitting still in front of a computer you can feel much colder than if you are busy and moving around.
Over winter we made use of the fact the fire was going and used it to to do some of our cooking which is not something we have done until this year.  In the past I had tried but I found the fireplace did not get hot enough and the food took hours to cook.
But this year the thought hit me, it didn't matter if it took hours to cook as long as I planned it that way.
So this year I took a different tactic and planned ahead.  Instead of using my slow cooker like I did last winter I cooked on the stove.   I found the best way to make any kind of meat dish was to brown the meat first in the pan I am going to cook in then add all the rest of the ingredients and place on the fire for the day and let it slowly cook away.  I also trialed speeding up the process by bringing the entire pot to the boil on the stove first then transferring to the fire to be left to cook for the rest of the time.
All of the curry's I made this way were lovely and tender.

I monitored our power usage and it was slightly lower that last winter but I am not sure how much I can contribute to this method of cooking.  However it was easy to just get dinner ready and forget about it for the rest of the day.
Now that we are heading into the warmer months and our fire will be getting used less and less it is time to go back to cooking in the slow cooker and on the stove top for curry so we do not heat up the house.

Did you cook on your wood stove over winter?

How Little Can You Spend - Update

This month I set myself a challenge to spend as little as possible over the entire month and I thought I would update you on how the month has progressed.

I have found it easy to make many meals from our veggie garden, pantry and freezer with just a few editions. Breakfasts were not a problem at all and I was able to do enough baking to keep us well stocked in snacks and lunchbox extras, there were plenty of eggs and an endless supply of cherry tomatoes, silverbeet and herbs from the garden. 

Dinners were where I had to add purchased ingredients, which I expected, but what I had not factored in so much was the amount of fruit and carrots we would purchase over a month.  I am happy to eat the citrus from our garden or that I can get from a roadside tree for free but Hubby is not a citrus fan.

Every day at the moment Hubby takes 2 apples, 2 carrots and 3 bananas to work plus some leftovers, dried pawpaw or a birdseed bar and often a couple of boiled eggs.  That might sound like a lot but he works in a very physical job and works from 6 am till 5 pm so he needs a lot of food.  I am also glad he chooses to take such a healthy lunchbox too.  I work from home so I make it up on the day what I am having.

I was hoping to spend less than $50 for the whole month and here I what I have spent so far:

1 Cucumber:   1.20

4 x 1 kg Carrots    5.64

1 Red Cabbage 2.98

6 Free Range Chicken Drumsticks 4.52

3 x 3 lt Milk 9.00 (we used UHT milk from our stockpile for the rest of the month)

3.84 kg Granny Smith Apples 7.64

1.215 kg Brown Onions 1.93

1 Red Onion .44

1/2 Green Cabbage 1.49

Peppercorns 1.10

359 gm Mushrooms 3.15

2.45 kg Bananas 8.56

1.35 kg Potatoes 2.15

Dried Pawpaw 3.79

Total Spent so far: $53.59 and I am pretty confident we can make it to the end of the month with just a few more dollars on fruit for Hubby.

Some of the meals we have eaten during the month for dinners (and for lunches as left overs) are:

Roast Pumpkin, Quinoa, Feta and Bacon Salad

Quiche

Greek Salad

Home-made Lamb Sausage Rolls

Roast Chicken Drumsticks and Black Bean Salad

Vegetable Curry

We have really used up nearly every package of frozen meat from the freezer over the month and used up the last of our home raised beef which has allowed us to stick to our spending goal for the month.
While the challenge has helped use up some of the pantry staples that have been sitting around for some time (I used up a number of my jars of my preserved tomatoes and some preserved fruit from 2012) there are still quite a few items I have yet to use up including a heap of polenta (not sure why I have so much of it since we do not eat it that often - it must have been on sale), lots of dried beans, and things like my sushi rice and wrappers that need just a few things to make them complete.
So while I will not be repeating the challenge in the same way in September I will be focusing on using up these odds and ends and items I have lots of.

Now I guess I better look into how many ways I can use polenta.  Ideas anyone?

Feeding A Cow On The Cheap

Back at the start of July our cow "Freezer 2" was supposed to have been killed and be in the freezer but this did not happen.
We had planned to have her in the freezer before we ran out of feed which we knew was inevitable due to the lack of rain.  We also knew that because of the severe drought affecting much of Queensland buying feed would be very expensive (between $16 and $22 per week).  At that sort of cost it basically ruins any saving we might have made from raising our own meat.

So for the past 6 weeks we have been cutting grass from the roadside to feed to our cow.  We feed her 2 wheel barrows of grass a day and she has not lost any weight/muscle mass by the looks of things.

Setting off to cut grass

Hubby does the whipper snipping and I do the rake up

We cut a few days of grass at a time and store it in the neighbours open ended shed.  We have finished the grass on the roadside nearby and are now going around our neighbours shed.

Freezer 2 comes running when she sees the wheel barrow

The grass is not great but she picks through it and eats most of it.  You can see in the photo below that she is not at all interested in what is outside that gate when there is a pile of grass to eat.

We have a row of trees in our front paddock where she is at the moment and for a while now I have been picking up all the fallen branches and piling them around the base of each tree.  To this I add dried cow pats and now that we have been cutting this grass for Freezer 2, we are also adding any leftover grass she does not eat.  I am building a sort of Hugelkultur which is something often used in permaculture to build soil and it helps to deter the cows from wearing down the soil around the base of the trees and stops them rubbing on the trunks.  Cutting all this grass made me realise that if you are creative there are sources of free organic matter all around us we just need to go out and find them.

We now have a new butcher who is happy to kill our cow in September so we only need to keep feeding Freezer 2 for a few more weeks.
Thankfully we have just had some good rain (34 mm) and the weather is warming up so we should even get a bit of growth to help things along but I think we will still be cutting grass until she is in the freezer and that possibly means trekking 500 metres up the road and back with the wheel barrow a few times, but free is free right.

What frugal methods have you used to feed your animals?

Tasty Mince - Many Frugal Meals

As part of the ongoing challenge of 'How Little Can You Spend' in our house I decided that some tasty mince was in order.
I used a few basic vegetable that I had on hand as well as some items from the garden and stockpile to make some tasty mince that can be eaten on it's own or combined with pasta, rice or potatoes to make different meals.
There was 1 kg of mince, 2 carrots, 1 capsicum, 2 onions (one of the ones in the photo had gone bad) some silverbeet and garlic chives from the garden, and I used 2 jars of diced tomatoes from the panty.

There was also this strange looking ball of frozen mushrooms that I found lurking at the bottom of the freezer.  Sure they were not much to look at a past their best but in a dish like this they just added to the flavour.

I also added celery salt, pepper and garlic and some red lentil at the end to thicken the mix and soak up some of the juices.

I am sure everyone has a recipe for tasty mince so I won't write one out here but I will say that my tips for maximum flavour are as follows:
Cook the onions until soft and translucent over a medium heat without browning so that they become sweet then remove them from you pan
Brown the mince in batches so that it gets lots of colour on it
Once the mince is browned add you tomatoes or liquid so that you can lift all of the tasty bits off the bottom of the pan
Add the rest of the ingredients and cook till done.

I have frozen this in smaller amounts and we will use it over the month to make a variety of meals.  It is easy to turn it into something new by just adding additional spices.

Do you make tasty mince?
How do you keep it interesting?

How Little Can You Spend - Stretched Sausage Pasta

For the Month of August I have declared it "How Little Can You Spend Month".  This basically means that I will try and spend as little as possible on all things groceries.  Hubby is less enthused about this plan but I figure if I keep baking tasty treats for his lunch and dinner he will come around to the idea.

Tonight I managed to turn some very basic ingredients ad two lonely sausages in to 4 serves of pasta and meatballs.  If you are not someone who normally uses anchovies I encourage you to give them a try like this. They dissolve way to nothing but impart a rich salty flavour to the meal.

Pasta Sauce

1 Large Onion, finely diced
1/2 red Capsicum, finely diced
6 Anchovies, finely diced
2 Cloves Crushed Garlic
2 Cups of Quartered Cheery Tomatoes
2 Good quality flavoured sausages ( I used Lamb and Rosemary)
1 Tsp Fresh Thyme

Add a few tablespoons of olive oil to a large frypan and gently fry the onion  on a low heat until it is soft and nearly translucent.  Add the capsicum and cook until soft then add the anchovies and garlic and cook for 2 minutes before adding the tomatoes and 1/2 cup of water and stir to combine.  You then need to pinch off little portions of your sausages, roll them into balls and drop them into the sauce mix to cook through.
Cook some pasta and once cooked add the cooked pasta to the fry pan with a little of the pasta cooking water, mix together and serve.

Black Bean Salad - Tasty and Frugal

I love black beans and this is such an easy and tasty salad that makes good use of them along with just a few other ingredients.  Like all meals that are made with beans this one is really easy on the hip pocket.
For this I used dried beans that I soaked and cooked my self (cost $1.50) a tin of corn (I grabbed a few of these when they were on sale for $1.00 each but normally I use fresh corn) a capsicum and some coriander from the garden.

Black Bean Salad

2 cups of Dried Black Beans Soaked and pre-cooked and cooled
3 Cobs of Corn or 1 tin
1 Large Red Capsicum
1 Bunch of Coriander, chopped
2 Cloves of Garlic, crushed
1/4 Red Onion, finely diced
2 Tbs Sugar
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
Zest and Juice of 2 Limes
2 Tsp Salt
1/4 Tsp Cayenne Pepper

If you are using fresh corn grill your corn cobs in a griddle pan until you get a light char on the outside and are just slightly cooked.  Then cool them and cut the kernels from the cob and add them with the cooked black beans in a large bowl
Dice you capsicum and add this to the bowl  of corn and beans along with your chopped coriander and mix together.

In another bowl combine the remaining ingredients and whisk together until the sugar is dissolved then pour over then bean mix and mix through.  You can eat it straight away but it is best chilled for a few hours or overnight to let the flavours blend.
I served it up with roasted chicken drumsticks.

Stuffed Mushrooms - A Frugal Dinner Option

This week we have been having some easy frugal meals with a focus on using up bit and pieces and last night it was stuffed mushrooms.

I started with large mushrooms, one for me two for hubby.

I removed the stalks and chopped them finely.

Then I added the last few pieces of goats feta and used the oil to dress the insides of the mushrooms before adding the stuffing.

I added a few steamed and chopped spinach leaves, some chopped garlic chives as well as some diced walnuts then mixed it all up.

After stuffing the mushrooms I topped them off with sliced cherry tomatoes and some Parmesan before baking.  A very tasty and frugal dinner.