Be the Change You Want to See in the World...

I did it...

Erenia needed another $25 towards her agricultural loan... she can buy her vehicle now... 

Good Luck Erenia...

Thanks Kel for the inspiration...

You can do it too... It's easy... you can even pay by Paypal... and it's only a loan so you'll even get it back (if you want it) or you can use it again to help someone else...

Kiva

Growing Green Fingers...

To offset my ranting over the last few days, I will show you some vegetable wonders of the world... We have had so much rain in the last few weeks, I haven't had to water the garden, so I haven't really been taking time to look at what's been going on. The mornings of sitting out in the sun drinking my coffee have gone and the paddling pool has been put away. 

Has summer gone so soon?

Before we set off on our weekends away, there was nothing but a few flowers on the french beans. Now miraculously we have 6 inches of superfine legumes to be proud of...

The peppers are popping up quite nicely, but the slugs and baby snails have had a field day...

We've had the last of the lettuce now, but the cherry tomatoes are still giving us some sweet little gifts of juiciness...

We haven't had much of a harvest in our first attempt at growing vegetables, mainly because of the lack of space in the yard and because I haven't been able to afford to buy or find any larger pots or compost to repot the things that need more nourishment. I guess if we could compost our waste somehow it would make a huge difference to what we could grow.

I haven't used any kind of plant food because I don't want to get into buying organic food in plastic bottles that won't be available in India. When the time comes I will research homemade organic plant feeds in more depth.

The experiments in sowing and growing have been great fun and very challenging. The satisfaction I have felt seeing and eating something I made happen is unbelievably addictive.

I knew from the start that things would go wrong and I have been happy to learn from my mistakes.

What I have learnt:

• Always use clean soil, to avoid diseases such as 'damping off'. At the very beginning I used some pebbles from the garden to help with drainage in my pots... big mistake! The seedlings and soil went mouldy and developed a green 'dew drop' disease over the surface.
  
• Watering should be done from below to avoid 'drowning' the seeds before they germinate.
• Water regularly to avoid 'bolting' of seedlings. If the tray gets too dry the seedlings will bolt up and grow too quickly.
• Carrots need to be thinned out when they are quite small, otherwise the leaves get too tangled to easily be pulled.
• Slugs love my strawberries!

What we have grown:

• Baby leaf lettuce - lots of it.
• Rocket - lots more.
• Courgettes - very small ones due to small pots, but very tasty too. About 10 in total.
• Tomatoes - cherry, we've eaten about 20 so far.
• French beans - about 20 on the plant, I may use them tonight.
• Peas - haven't done so well because they were in the same pot as the beans, which have won the battle.
• Peppers - the pots are too small so I'm not expecting much.
• Potatoes - an experiment with a few Tesco Value chits! Watered by the bathroom sink, that needs a proper drainage pipe. I planted 6 in a recycling box, too many in a small space, they grew too tall and fell over before they flowered. I had a look and found lots of potatoes but they had a white speckled disease. I just wanted to see how they grew really.
• Cucumber - still growing, but the same pot issue, they are looking a bit small and wobbly.
• Spring onions - from sets, lovely in our salads.
• Coriander - loads of it.

So all in all I'm very happy with the dabbling in 'Green fingered magic' ... The most important thing I have learned is that preparation is the key to success. The heart of any garden is in the soil. Good soil means healthy plants. When we buy some land I will probably spend the first year just building up a good supply of compost and making some raised beds to ensure the nutrients are properly distributed. I'm also going to look into irrigation systems involving greywater. 

I'm excited about learning more of crop rotation, companion planting and moon planting. So if any of you have ideas, links or posts about these, I'd love to hear from you.

One of my favourite garden blogs in India (in fact it's the only one I've found!) is India Garden. She doesn't grow vegetables but her photos are always so inspiring. 

I can't wait to get started now!

Urad Dal Puris with Potato Bhaji...

I have had a lovely comment left for me on 'Little Yellow Flower' from Zlamushka... So this is my entry into her blogs August 'Tried and Tasted'. "This month is a celebration of health, positive spirit and hopes - KUDOS to you, Jai & Bee :-)"

ZLAMUSHKA'S SPICY KITCHEN'S

Tried and Tasted - Jugalbandi

Urad Dal Puris with Potato Bhaji

taken from Jugalbandi's post

The original recipe and method can be found in the post Potatoes… and Puris

 There are also some great tips from Jai and Bee on how to grow potatoes in a cardboard box!

I used only two, quite large chillies and thank God I did!

It was a little spicier than I like it, so next time I'd use only one. 

I was supposed to stick to the original recipe to stay true to the final dish, but we don't have any asafoetida or kalonji (nigella seeds) so these ingredients were left out. Thus staying as true as possible without compromising my frugal journey to empty cupboards..

I had a jar of black dal in a jar in the cupboard. Now me being, well me, had not labeled the type of dal it was. At a good guess it was very likely to be Urad Dal :) It wasn't of the shelled variety so there is a little more roughage in my puris to help you get a bit more fibre in your diet!

Take note of the 360*F temperature as it really does make the puris puff up like a dream. Wait a few seconds before you drop the next one in, to give time for the oil to heat up again.

The final verdict... really good, mouthwatering (especially with the amount of chili I added!)

A perfect lunch...

A Good Indian Wife...

I've done it at last... 

Me the ever disorganised, procrastinateur and not to mention 'The Queen of bargains, reduced value shopaholics daughter', has finally got round to doing a very simplified version of a weekly menu plan. Now bearing in mind I very rarely know what day it is or where I might be living at the end of a week, for me this is a miracle.

The last (and only) time I planned a weekly menu was when my whole family were moving out of our 13 year family home. So my job as the official 'Obliterator' was to supervise the dwindling down of supplies.

I did extremely well under so much pressure, considering my families likes and dislikes. Michael has to have HOT, tabasco or mitmita, Hanna is a picky teenager and eats only raw fruit and vegetables it seems and gallons of smoothies, my husband doesn't eat much and certainly "doesn't look for vegetables", my Mum has to find something wrong with every meal and then there's me... I eat anything (twice as much when I'm pregnant) and Grandpa who eats like a bird.

My usual plan of action is at about 6 o clock say to my husband "what shall we have for dinner", the answer "I don't know Bo, you know, whatever" inevitably comes. I look in the fridge, moan a bit, sit down for half an hour and then think I'd better get up and be a good wife and cook dinner.  Meat is always defrosted in the microwave as I never remember to take it out early. 

Now things have to change... C's shift has changed from 6am-2pm to 2pm-10pm, so now he can't buy the cheap sandwiches and samosas they sell at lunchtime. He won't eat a big meal in the day so it's my job to send him to work with a tiffin he can heat up in the microwave and have a proper meal when he returns from work at night.

So bearing in mind my one success story from the past, I sat down and scribbled some things down on a scrap of paper.

We had some pork fillet in the freezer, half price from when my mum took us shopping a few weeks back, so I took that out to defrost.  

My list...

Monday - minted lamb burgers with salad and chapattis

Tuesday - pork, pepper and pea stir fry with cous cous

Wednesday - alloo gobi (potato and cauliflower curry) with chapattis

Thursday - spaghetti bolognaise

Friday - leftover stew (anything I can find plus lentils and herbs)

lamb mince

chapattis

mint

yoghurt

pepper

onions

tomatoes 

cucumber

potatoes

cauliflower

cheese

beef mince

I haven't been to the supermarket for about three weeks now so the fridge is bare and all supplies are down to a minimum. I decided to walk to the local indian shops and buy my meat from the Halal butcher and the rest from the local Londis (mini market)

Once in the butchers looking for beef mince, I saw chicken mince and thought I'd try chicken bolognaise instead, so for 1kg of lamb mince and 1/2 kg of chicken mince I paid £5.85. Now I'm sure that's a lot less than Tescos charge. The men had a little laugh at me when I took out my supermarket carrier bags to be reused, so I told them I was out to save the world! Giggles all round and a little discount for making them laugh!

In the grocery shop I picked up everything on the list plus a nice punnet of juicy big strawberries. The cheese had 50% extra free! Total £10.80...

Now I don't keep track of how much everything is per kilo so I couldn't tell you if I saved or not, but I can say that if I had driven to Tescos (petrol and pollution) I would have picked up a lot more than was on my list, I would have had a lot more packaging to throw away (I don't use plastic bags for veg but when I'm forced to buy 'value' ranges they always come pre-packed) and I would have come away with a twisted feeling of guilt in my stomach.

So Mondays meal...

was a joy to cook, feeling on top of the world of menu plans, I chopped the mint (a very large bunch) and used half in the burger mix with red onion, chilli and garlic, blitzed in the chopper, added spices, an egg and a dash of oil and fried the patties on a griddle pan (covering with foil and turning off the heat when both sides were done to save energy)

The other half off mint I chopped and stored in a jar with sugar and balsamic, in the fridge. A teaspoon of this I mixed into the extremely thick and creamy greek yoghurt I bought for the dressing.

Served with a salad of home grown baby leaf lettuce, rocket and parsley with tomato and cucumber and chapattis (I only bought one pack of 8 chapattis forgetting about lunch the next day, so tonight I'll be making from scratch for the first time) 

Tuesdays meal... 

Threw all the ingredients into a wok with soy sauce, sweet chili sauce garlic and ginger stir fried on a high heat til meat fully cooked and then turned off the heat and left with a plate over the top.

One of the things I have been trying to do since starting this journey is measure and weigh in cups, things like cous cous, rice, porridge and pasta, so we don't get left with a plateful extra at the end of each meal and so we don't waste water or energy cooking it.

1 cup of cous cous feeds 2 adults. In a bowl add 1 and a half cups of boiling water and a squeeze of lemon and cover for 10 minutes with a plate. Perfectly cooked cous cous, not soggy not dry!

Oh I love it when things are so simple!

You may be wondering what's for dinner on Saturday and Sunday? Give me a chance... I'm not that organised!

Grow Your Own

 Jugalbandi's

"Grow Your Own Food Event" 

hosted by Andrea's recipes

This events round up can be found here

and my recipe is there...

Mushroom, Courgette and Baby Corn Sabji @ Indian Earth

Emma used her courgettes (zucchini) in a delicious stir fry. She says - “I decided to ‘harvest’ a couple of courgettes and put them to good use in a vegetable bhaji. The recipe is ‘off the top of our heads’, but the idea came from a Punjabi Dhaba in Bombay, where they make the best ever sabji.”

Simple Things...

We spent the afternoon yesterday on our friends boat. Their mooring is just outside of  Birmingham in a beautiful spot. What a life, so simple, so free.

They've built the boat themselves, Carl is a carpenter and has finished the interior himself. This has obviously meant the initial outlay for the boat has cost them a lot less to do. One year later they are talking about selling up and starting it all over again... with a profit of £20,000!

It's wonderful to have friends who have the same outlook on life as you, I found it a breathe of fresh air to cruise down the canal, talking about what plants along the hedgerow are edible, growing vegetables on the roof, buying a small plot of land on the edge of a lake in Andalucia and setting up in a yurt.

We thought about buying a boat too last year, if we were planning on staying in the UK then it would be a definite option.  But for us it would take a substantial amount of our capital to make it happen and we need to buy our land in India first. That's the priority at the moment, a place we can finally call 'our home'.

We hope to be able to afford at least four acres of agricultural land in a quiet location somewhere in the hills of Kerala.  Build a small house as eco as possible and live as self sufficiently as we can.   

We can't go now because of the bureaucracy of immigration, but that's another story altogether...

So here in Leicester whilst we struggle to survive on one mere salary, I am doing my best to practice this life on a very small scale.

In a way it's hard to envision a life without all this commotion and chaos around me, a home and a garden that is all ours, planned how we want it, with all the things we need and none of the things we don't.  

A simple life where we can live and learn, love and grow, together.

My only little piece of paradise at the moment is our yard. It's not big, not beautiful, but it's the only place I can find peace, alone, potter around amongst my vegetables, watch the beauty grow before my eyes.  

Little things I didn't know before are more precious to me than 'shopping on a saturday', a flowering pepper (capsicum) that I've never seen before...

My perfectly formed little green tomatoes hiding in the shade, better than any episode of 'Eastenders'...

A tiny little flower has opened on a forgotten leaf of rocket, cream and deep claret, more amazing than any pretty dress I've ever seen...

A strawberry poking out of the leaves, still white but giving you a little dream of what you will have for dessert in a few more days, better than any genetically modified, tart and tasteless, plastic boxed cousins sitting in Sainsbury's...

How stunned I was to find that cucumbers and peas and beans (and probably a fair few of the other vegetables) have a mind of their own, they are very clever indeed. They hang on to their canes with just a few twirls here and a couple of twists there, they know where they are going and how to get there, and all without any need for a Satnav!  

While I marvel at the wonders of nature, I can free my mind for a while from the chaotic scrambling of lists and things to do, that seem to constantly flutter around my head.  

Talking of fluttering the butterflies are back, we've spotted a few out there in the sunshine

... too quick to click!

Veg Box Envy

Oh dear, is there such a thing?

Did I really pay a pound for 3 small onions? I was a bit miffed also to find rather expensive (17p each!) mushrooms (not in the photo, in the fridge!), in place of VEG no. 7...

So we got:

Rainbow chard, a bit limp

A lovely cabbage

Quite a few red potatoes

3 small onions

5 carrots

A handful of broad beans

6 mushrooms (in a plastic bag!)

2 fairtrade banana's from Peru (LOCAL?) (an added bonus, I guess)

I'm not sure if my high expectations of a huge bounty of vegetables in a box was fueled by images of GM plastic packed vegetables at Tesco... but to me it just seems, well, not very many vegetables to feed my little family for the week.  I even Googled Organic veg box just to check out what the box should look like!  Thankfully I found Martin's blog and I feel a bit better that £7 doesn't really buy you many vegetables these days.

I did however find a new shop less than a mile from home, the pick up point for the box.  The Wholefood Coop was a breath of fresh air in the city.  An Organic, Eco Supermarket with a Homeschool bookshop, Roving Books

I'm going to cook up a rainbow chard and mushroom stir fry with cous cous tonight...