SN2N: Day 28

Four weeks down on the Spend Next To Nothing Challenge, and I feel like I could continue for quite some time yet! I *almost* didn't spend anything at all this week - but at the last minute decided to get some extra veges I needed for the preserving I wanted to get done. Updates below.....

In the Kitchen...

This week I carried out a number of successful experiments in the kitchen, as well as doing some old-favourite preserving etc. 

I bottled yet another batch of Pickled Cucumbers. 

​Since my zucchini plant is now producing, I made up a batch of my favourite Garden Goodies Pasta Sauce - been so missing it since we ran out! 

I made up a batch of coconut milk, as well as some more almond milk. Both are easy-as and taste good! I especially like to combine them in cuppas or on porridge/cereal. For smoothies, I use straight coconut milk. For baking I often use almond milk. 

In the mood for some baking, I made an all natural batch of what I'm calling Fruity Drops, and converted an old friend's Apple Nut Cake recipe to gluten and dairy free. 

A friend dropped off some water kefir grains for me, so I've started a batch of water kefir - a fizzy, delicous, probiotic drink. More on that when my first successful batch is completed. 

At the same time, my first batch of (hopefully) new-and-improved green tea kombucha has moved from it's first ferment to the second ferment (bottled and kept at room temp for another week). Can't wait to try it next week!

I turned some left-over cauliflower rice into a fried rice for tea one night - cooked a chicken breast and put aside, sauted some onion and veges in a little coconut oil, added salt, herbs and soy sauce. Tossed in the cauli rice and cooked, chopped chicken, and cooked for a few minutes - done. Was yum with a good dollop of the green tomato chutney I made a couple of years ago. 

I also used cauli rice as a base for a tender, yummy stew, made with some gravy beef I'd bought on special some time back, then divided into suitable sized portions and frozen.  

I cooked my first kohl rabi by peeling and thinly slicing it, then frying in coconut oil until tender. Yum! I served it with lamb chops and kumara baked together in the oven. 

I made up a tasty French Vinegarette dressing using some raw apple cider vinegar in which I had steeped chive flowers for a couple of weeks, giving it a pretty pink colour and a delicious flavour. Recipe/instructions to come. 

I also made a batch of Curdito  - South American sauerkraut - which has cabbage, carrot and onions in it. Making sauerkraut with homegrown cabbage is so simple and such a pleasure, because of the high-water content of the cabbages compared to bought ones. This sauerkraut is delicious! Recipe to come. 

I cooked up more apple jelly with the liquid from the fallen, immature apples of our trees. This time I skimmed it properly as it cooked - doesn't it look pretty?! 

A while back, I had harvested red clover flowers and set them in a jar covered with vodka to create a tincture. This week I strained them and put the tincture in a clean jar, pouring some of it into a dropper bottle for easy administration. Dropper bottles are available in 6 packs from iherb.com at a reasonable cost, and useful for many herbal remedies. More on this to come.

Lunch one day: fresh NZ spinach, green cabbage and rainbow chard from the garden, Curdito (above), fresh tomatoes from the garden, my new dressing, and some pickled cucumbers. Such a visual feast, and such a wonderful explosion of various tastes and textures on the tongue, jam packed with freshness and nutrition. 



​We had a shared lunch at church today, so I made a banana cake from frozen bananas, and a quiche which used up some pastry from the freezer, and some of my abundance of eggs. Both were quickly devoured!

In the Garden....

This week has been super busy in the office, so the garden has been mostly about some harvesting, a little watering, and a bit of admiring :-). I really need to get cracking tomorrow night and sow some seeds for the next batch of vegetables!

I picked a 3.5 kg cabbage, my first two kohl rabi, and some broccoli (all of which were used as shown above). I also pulled out a cauliflower plant that was completely covered in aphids - normally aphids attack only weakened plants, and so I decided this one could just go. Another cauli is hearting up nicely, so I bent some of the leaves over it to protect if from sunburn. 

These two large plants at the back of this patch (below) are marshmellow in their second year of growth (6-8 feet tall). One harvests the roots after three years to use to make genuine marshmellow, or for medicinal purposes. I've never grown it before, so fascinated to see how big it will get next year! Last year they were a few stems with flowers, up to a metre high. Died off completely in winter. To the right is a close up of the flowers. 

In the foreground are yacon, and behind them cosmos. 

The lemon bergamot (pink flowers below) at the front of my watermelon patch is flowering. Another first for me. The bees love this stuff. In fact, both the bergamot and the watermelon flowers are attracting lots of bumble bees, honey bees, wool carder bees, and drone flies currently. All great pollinators. 

And I've been steadily picking plums, blueberries and strawberries. The first of my purple climbing beans are ready. I suspect some of them will be a challenge to pick, as they're climbing up the sunflowers, the tallest of which topped out at 3.85m!

Spending Update...

I was going to easily get through this week without spending a dime, but on Saturday I decided I really wanted to make some of my delicious pasta sauce, and needed some garlic, onions and celery for it and a couple of other things I want to make. So I went ahead and brought those - cost $14.22. I could have got them less from the market garden in the next town, but since neither of us were going that way for anything else, it wasn't worth the drive. 

Balance forward:            $56.52
This week's allowance: +$50.00
This week's spend:        -$14.22
Balance:                          $92.30

Handy Hints & Thrifty Tips

Clothing pegs: Keep a small jar of spring pegs in the kitchen - they are a quick and easy way to seal up opened packs of food. 

Easy to see, clean recipes: I keep my personal recipes in sheet protectors in a binder. When I want to use one, I take it out and hang it using two pegs onto a stretchy wire such as is used for net curtains, which stretches across my kitchen window at eye level. The recipe is right where I can see it while working, and it doesn't get any splatter, or is easily wiped clean if it does. 

Best ever drying rack: If you have high ceilings, suspend a rack or the side of a child's cot on pulleys from the ceiling. It's the perfect place to dry laundry in winter, or hang up herbs, seed heads etc to dry in summer. Easily lowered into reach to load, and then pulled up out of the way to hang in the warmest part of the room - near the ceiling.