I am a bear Grahhhhh!

The 'real' winter has finally hit and our family has been in hibernation mode. It's been so cold and wet lately that even my vege patch in the back garden has been too far to trek to. We live in suburban Auckland so trust me it's really not far at all.

I hadn't realised how neglected it has been until I looked out of our bedroom window this morning and spied beautiful yellow flowers in amongst the green. Yes, unthinkably I had let my loose head broccoli go to seed. A quick trip out between showers saw me harvesting a huge bundle of the heads which will go toward dinner tonight. This type of broccoli has been brilliant - only yielding a dinner size amount at a time and because they aren't huge tight heads we haven't had the previous issue of caterpillars that you only realise haven't been rinsed away when the vege arrives on your plate :p We will definitely be replanting again.

I also noticed my carrots are almost ready to harvest, Kale is still going strong, Bok Choy is ready to go too. The beetroot is still just sitting there - last time I checked there were no big veges on the end of the leaves and they've been in the ground for months now so I think we'll chalk that one up as a failure. Pity because I loooove beetroot.

The garlic and onions are already thriving so I'm hoping all this rain doesn't drown them. If this weather keeps up I may consider planting rice! ;)

Eating seasonally has been fantastic. I've discovered so many new veges and in turn so many new recipes. Our current favourite is Jerusalem Artichoke which I made into a gorgeous soup the other day. My husband was very confused when it came out of the Foodbox, wondering why we had been sent such a large quantity of ginger. Swedes and Leeks, things we used to walk past at the supermarket have now been integrated into many dinners. I'd love to say that we use Kale in many different recipes too because I know there are so many out there (being a staple of American cooking) but we can't go past the Kale chips. Hey, it gets the kids eating it and if it works I say go with it.

I must admit I did feel rather smug the other night when the news ran a report on the skyrocketing price of veges. They used Capsicum and Tomatoes as their examples - well of COURSE those are expensive! They're completely out of season! Yay me for actually knowing that. A year ago I would have been in the majority of the younger population who, thanks to a global market, has no idea what veges are grown in what season locally.

Almost Half Way

Time to put the garlic into the fridge for a week in preparation for planting. Yes I know I'm going to end up a week early from the shortest day but the following weekend looks busy already and I want to make sure I don't forget.

I can't believe we're in winter. It's unseasonably warm in Auckland. The mornings are chilly but most of the day is spent in teeshirts or light shirts. The sun still has heat. If it weren't for the shortness of days there'd be no indication.

So not a great litmus test for the woodburner vs. electric heater experiment really but I can tell you that the woodburner heats our upper floor completely and also warms the rooms faster than the heater that struggles to take the chill off just the lounge some evenings. The other night husband was lounging in front of the woodburner in just his undies because it was so warm in the room. Usually it only needs 3 or 4 pieces of wood too so it should take us a fair while to work through the woodpile. What a pity both of us suck at building and keeping the fire going. We wouldn't survive in the rough I'm sure.

I'm working on the husband to let me keep chickens. We go through about a dozen eggs a week and I figure laying hens would serve not only to keep us in eggs but also make good pets for the kids and help with pest control in the garden (so long as I fence off the actual veges). So far hubby has said no but I'm going to keep pushing the benefits.

For those of you interested and in Auckland there's a great site called Chickens at Home which sells many different breeds. There's also a few other sites which serve the rest of the country.

Winning!

I'm happy to report that we 'seem' to be on target for shops under $150. It's not an exact science because it fluctuates depending on what's on special. Bulk buying is definitely the way to go. Especially with Cheese and Butter.

Also I'm getting very good and cooking great meals from scratch with cheap cuts of meat. Tonight for example we're having meat pies. These are made with casserole cuts of beef because you stew them for over an hour before you make up the pie. Obviously it's much easier to manage the food budget if you have time - i.e. are at home - because you need lots of time to cook from scratch. I wouldn't recommend trying this if you have very young children unless you are supermum or have an amazingly chilled baby.

We have a log burner in our home so this year we decided to use it. So far we have paid $65 getting the chimney swept and $215 for 2 M³ of firewood and some kindling. Will it work out cheaper than power this winter? It will be interesting to find out. Last night we used 3 logs and heated the whole house to almost uncomfortably hot levels. It was still warm this morning. Mind you it was also cloudy this morning which probably helped.

The garden is well planted for winter. I finally pulled out the Capsicums (but they were amazing and I will definitely be doing them again next summer) and planted the bed in with red and brown onions. In a few weeks garlic will go in too. Can you believe it? Only a few weeks until the shortest day of the year. The brussel sprouts still haven't appeared but the broccolli is starting too show and the beets are looking good. The carrots are looking good too although there aren't very many as I had issues getting them to germinate for some reason. My kale is doing well too which is lucky because I have a new love - Kale Chips. Mmmm. If you get some kale and have a fan forced oven definitely give them a try. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Kale Chips courtesy of foodbox

Preheat oven to 160 ° fan bake
Remove stems from kale and wash thoroughly and pat dry
Lay on baking tray and drizzle over approx 1 Tbsp olive oil
Sprinkle with any favourite seasonings e.g. garlic salt
Bake at 160 ° for 8-10 minutes until crisp and lightly browned
Sprinkle on Parmesan Cheese (optional) and serve.

New recipes

Ah the Internet. Where were we without it? I remember the days of having to wait until the library opened to go and find something out. Or using telephones - to talk not write. Really showing my age here - I remember the old analogue dial phones. Anyway I digress...

I've been hunting out new recipes to use the food I have. That pumpkin that grew 'for us' made several containers of pumpkin soup and I had half left! So I did a little searching and my new favourite thing is - Pumpkin Scones!

For anyone not raised in North America or South East Asia the idea of pumpkin being used as a sweet is a bit foreign. Heck, in England it's considered only fit for pigs! But I encourage you to give it a try. Not only does it come out a beautiful golden colour, its consistency means that you use less butter and sugar.

I started with this basic recipe from Graham Weir (Published in the Australian Women's Weekly and sourced on the taste.co.nz website) and have since made variations with coconut, and ginger and dates.

Ingredients

60g butter

¼ cup (55g) caster sugar

1 egg yolk

1 cup cooked (440g) mashed pumpkin

2½ cups (375g) self-raising flour

pinch of salt

pinch bi-carb soda

milk, for glazing

Method

Preheat oven to 220°C fan-forced and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Beat butter, sugar and egg yolk together until combined; stir in mashed pumpkin.

Add self-raising flour, salt and bi-carb soda; mix until just combined.

Place dough onto a floured surface and knead lightly.

Roll or pat dough out to about 2cm thick.

Cut scones out using a 5cm cookie cutter and place onto tray.

Brush tops of scones lightly with a little milk.

Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

There are heaps of pumpkin scone recipes out there though - I chose this one simply because it had a cup measurement for the pumpkin rather than a pre-cooked weight and I had already cooked an pureed mine.

The other new project currently occupying (most of) my preserves shelf is Feijoa Chutney. I have several friends with feijoa trees and at this time of year they plead with anyone (even complete strangers I imagine) to take the damned things off their hands.

I already made a less than successful foray into Feijoa Jam - far too sweet and ended up more like Feijoa Honey, so this time I was determined to try something new and a little bit different.

The recipe below I found on a message board so hopefully they don't mind me reposting it here.

Ingredients

2kg feijoas, peeled and cut into chunks

600g sultanas

1kg pitted dates

1kg onions, peeled and cut into chunks

1kg brown sugar

50g ground ginger

50g curry powder

50g fresh red chillies, deseeded and finally chopped

20g salt

500ml water

Method

Dump all of the ingredients into a huge pot, mix, then bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for 2 hours, then spoon into hot sterilised jars and seal according to your preferred method.

This makes a LOT of chutney but it is good!

And finally an update from the garden. More beetroot has gone in as well as brocollini and curly kale. The eggplant has fruit but I'm not sure if it will get bigger so I'm adopting a wait and see approach. My brussel sprouts were being attacked by cabbage white butterflies but my mother found a great solution via a gardening mag. Butterfly decoys. Apparently Cabbage Whites are quite territorial so a couple of decoys made out of plastic scraps and staked in the garden keeps them away. So far so good!

The capsicum are at the end of their days. Some very sad mutant fruit is still on the vine but gone are the huge capsicums we had when they were in their prime. The dwarf beans have started to flower but still no beans.

The carrots - the rows and rows of carrot seed tape I planted - have produced a few straggly seedlings half of which the cats have dug up while toileting (gggrrrr!). I will keep planting them but I don't hold much hope of a good crop.

Say Cheese!

This weekend is a great time to stock up on Cheese. Foodtown/Countdown is doing their $9.99/1kg block special on Mainland Mild, Edam and Colby.
I just bought 3 - expiry Sept 2011 - and saved $13.49. Yes almost another whole block of cheese in savings! (which just goes to show how stupidly expensive cheese is at the moment).

Autumn

Wow what a crazy old time we're having globally. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the Christchurch Earthquake and now the Japanese Earthquake and resulting Tsunami. Of course there is a run-on effect financially every time these events occur. Petrol, rent and insurance increases, and ingredients such as flour and fruit and veges also cost more as harvests and crops are affected.

It's interesting how many people I've come across lately who are making a conscious effort to save money in the face of all of this. Gardening and home baking seems to be on the rise. Which is nice. I like the idea of getting back to basics. Many conversations with friends lately have been swapping recipes and dinner ideas and offering surpluses from one garden crop in exchange for another.

Tracking my shopping goal is really difficult. I know overall I am probably saving money because I haven't done another meat shop since the last post and the fruit and vege and dry goods shops are pretty standard. But it's really hard to track it weekly. I think I'm going to have to average it out - I hope that's not cheating.

A few things that have helped lately. I've been collecting and using up all my samples. Most of the ones I have are for skin care and cleaning which are of course the most expensive part of any shop. So when I ran out of washing powder the other week I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had 5 washes worth of samples to use. That's a week of washing I didn't have to buy powder for.

I've also found it really pays to shop around when it comes to buying your skincare. After using a few samples I decided that Aveeno seemed like a great one to buy. I was surprised that The Warehouse sold it a full $2 cheaper than the local Foodtown. So definitely go and check out places like The Warehouse and K-Mart as well as the supermarkets if you're using a fairly ubiquitous brand.

I'm still harvesting huge (bigger than commercially grown) Capsicums and Zucchini from my garden. I've just planted in dwarf beans and brussels sprouts and also sown some more carrots (if they survive the cats that is Grrrrrr!). Once my lettuces go to seed I'll be replacing them with Kale for the winter.

I also managed to score a lovely big pumpkin courtesy of my neighbour's vine which grew through our fence and decided it liked our side better (although she had quite a few on her side too so don't feel bad). So this weekend I really must make some pumpkin soup.

Apple Butter update

I forgot to let you know in the last post how it worked out.

The first lot wasn't so good. I added half the amount of sugar recommended in an American recipe figuring I could add more to taste and it ended up so flippin' sweet that I will have to make pies with it with rhubarb or something else that's tart to balance it out.

The second lot was a lot better. I've only added a little sugar and some spices. I have still more apples to go but it's honestly a good way to use them up. Cut off the bad bits and peel and core them. Shove them in the slow cooker at night and in the morning sterilise the jars (30 minutes at 150° ) mouli out the lumps and pour it in. Easy.

I also was given some lemons in the last delivery so I turned it into lemon honey and gave a jar back to the apple donors in thanks.