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Homegrown Eating: Days 1-3

7/3/2018

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A quick update of meals so far this week. Yummy and satisfying food!
Breakfasts: watermelon and grapes. 
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Monday's lunch: I pulled a large beetroot from the garden, cut it's leaves and stalks which I washed, chopped and set aside before peeling and chopping the beet, placing in a casserole dish, adding a spoonful of honey mixed with half a cup of water, and baking until tender. 
I then chopped up some shallots, peeled, deseeded and sliced most of a small marrow, and halved some cherry-sized tomtoes. I also chopped some parsley and chives, and made the decision to use up the two small spoonfuls of leftovers in the fridge - one of bolagnaise sauce, and one of cabbage and cashews. 
Heating a littlle oil in the pan, I sauted the shallots, then added the marrow and beetroot stalks and cooked for a couple of minutes. I then added the beet, tomatoes, leftovers and herbs, and a drizzle of liquid from the cooking of the beets. A dash of soy sauce and little salt, and stir fry until everything cooked/hot. The beet leaves were added last over the top, and cooked long enough to wilt. I really had no idea what this would taste like - but it was Yum! I started with the idea of using a beetroot, and just made the rest up as I went along. :-) 
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Monday's dinner: roasted new potatoes, baked lamb chops and pink banana jumbo squash (part of the last of last year's crop) with lightly cooked green beans. 
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Tueday's lunch: left overs from the previous day - the beet-based lunch mixed with some chopped up roasted spuds and squash and left over beans, reheated in the frying pan. 

I find it's very useful to cook up extra veges such as squash, beets, potatoes etc when preparing meals, as they can be used in a myriad ways for other quick meals. 

My husband chose to have an omelete.
Tuesday's dinner: 
Duck casserole (without the bacon in my usual recipe) on cauli rice, with green beans (they needed using up). 
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Snack: homegrown popcorn (mostly strawberry, with some yellow mixed in), popped in a hot air popper, and then tossed in some hot olive oil in a pot, and salted. YUM!

Other snacks: a handful of Chilean guavas, a few green beans straight off the vine, extra grapes, the odd apple or pear from our baby trees. 
Wednesday's lunch: I baked some more pink banana jumbo squash until tender, then cut from skins and whizzed in food processor with enough water to make whizzing easy. I sauted a chopped onion (have decided it's ok to use the onions I have; could use shallots instead but I want to make them last longer) in some coconut oil until starting to caramelise, added some chicken stock and the pumpkin puree, and a handful each of chopped chives and nasturtium, plus some salt. Brought to the boil and simmered for a few minutes. Served with Tumbling Tom tomatoes. The contrast between a juicy, sweet, cold tomato and hot soup is very pleasant and interesting! I ate a tomato after every few spoonfuls of soup. 
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Wednesday's dinner: left over duck casserole heated in a pot with left over chopped roasted potatoes and chopped left over beans, and served on left over cauli rice, reheated by frying for a couple of minutes. 
That's it so far!  Coming up: I'm thinking of inventing a new spaghetti and meatballs dish, and I'm wondering if I can turn the dried Rainbow Inca corn I grew a while back into "grits" (essentially a corn porridge). I wonder if any of the neighbours have a suitable hand mill for rough-grinding of the corn? Watch this space!
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Eat Only Homegrown Challenge

4/3/2018

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Starting tomorrow, my husband and I are setting out on a 2-week challenge. In week one, we'll eat only what we produce on the homestead (veges, fruit, weeds, honey, eggs, duck, lamb and chicken). In week 2, we'll skip the animal products and eat only out of the garden. 

Exceptions: I'm allowing olive and coconut oils for cooking, and salt. I can use up already purchased produce with a limited shelf-life (carrots, celery, mushrooms). And I'm permitting my homemade pasta sauce (majority homegrown), and the applesauce made with our own apples (homegrown except for cinnamon), should I want to use them. And homemade beef, lamb and chicken stock that are already in the freezer. I may also allow some naturally-fermented soy sauce if we really need it for flavouring, but we'll see. That's it!

Why this challenge? There's lots to eat in the garden, and I've been wanting to get to the stage where we live off the homestead as much as possible. Old habits die hard and all that - so need a kick start to eating off our little block. Plus it's time to get back on track with healthy eating in general. 

I'm not sure how much I'll post about it, as time is very limited currently, but will check in from time to time. At the very least, I'll let you know how it went. :-) 
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Post SN2N Challenge: Spending Up Large - NOT!

4/3/2018

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After not doing any regular grocery shopping since before Christmas due to my Spend Next To Nothing Challenge, it was time to shop. But a funny thing happened...I pulled out my Master Grocery List and started checking stock in my kitchen, bathroom etc, marking items I needed to buy. And I found myself saying, nope, don't really need any of that. Or that. Or that - to the things I would normally purchase because they're getting kind of low. And for other things, well I have alternatives to eat....etc

When I finally left to go grocery shopping, my list had a meagre 14 items on it. And I actually only ended up buying 8 of them. The others either weren't at a price I liked, out of stock, or I decided I just don't need them after all. 

I would seem that my SN2N challenge has really shifted my perspective.....
  • made me more aware of how long certain items last (I used to just stock up)
  • made me more conscious of what else we could use instead, that we already have
  • made me even more unwilling to pay full price for things I know will be on special sooner or later, that we can live without for now
  • made me more than ready to run out of some things so I can make simpler versions at home 
Before I made my list, I fully expected to do a "proper" grocery shop and spend around $400. Nothing unusual in that for a fortnight's groceries (taking into consideration multiple food intolerances, and my lack of adjusting to all the kids being gone). Instead, I spent......$58.99. And $10 was basically "treat" food (I really wanted some mushrooms and cashew nuts so I could make THIS yummy dish again.) The pic below shows what I bought. I really, really couldn't think of anything else we needed! (My husband says there's STILL too much food in the fridge lol). 
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​The linseed, allspice and molasses are ingredients for museli and preserving that I had noted I was runnnig low on. The ziplock bags...I want to get where we don't use any such bags, but I'm not quite there yet. Conditioner...because I'm not in the headspace to experiment with alternatives for that right now. TP - obvious ;-). Some pain relief for our medicine cabinet - also something I would like to permanently eliminate down the track. 
The days ahead will be interesting! Especially as I have a new challenge in mind - starting tomorrow!
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    My Personal Progress

    Throughout this website, I share skills and ideas under various appropriate headings to make them easy to access. THIS blog page will contain more personal posts - musings, my own progress in each area, and so on.

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