As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

betony

I've just been to Lidl's for the first time in years, as there's one in town. Was expecting it to be reasonable priced but have found a lot of the stuff about the same or even more expensive than Sainsbury's! Off the top of my head, my favourite blackcurrant high juice was £1.25, whereas it's £1.23 in Mr S :eek:; fresh fruit and veg, cooked meats, butter, cheese, all priced much the same as Mr S. What happened to the 'cut-price' continental supermarket I used to know and loathe?

Edited to add: I did, however get an absolutely HUMUNGOUS watermelon, bigger then my head (and probs heavier!) for £1.89

PS anyone know if humans can live on grass?

Seakay

kittie wrote: »

I would like a crockpot to make fermented veg, I remember those pots. I have a rumtopf (can`t spell it) and may well make preserved fruits in kirsch as the book recommends. I need a costco trip but the motorway will be hellish this weekend

Would an earthenware bread bin work as a crock pot? I notice one in a charity shop every now and then. If they have a lid (think that they may end up in the shop as lid broken or people redecorating) then usually it will have a hole in, which could be blocked if necessary

Seakay

ceridwen wrote: »

Hmmmm....noted thanks...:D

Now - for those of us (errr...like me for instance:o) who are still "learning our way around the Old Ways"......errr...:

1. How to tell please what a particular pebble is made of:o (I am assuming that some grey ones I have arent any of the above....??)

2. Errr...why shouldnt one use limestone, chalk or flint ones purlease?

Not sure why you shouldn't use flint as it doesn't react to vinegar or salt - limestone/chalk is bad as advised by ifonlyitwaseasier but is easy to spot because it is very soft (in rock terms) and you can draw with it (for hopscotch etc!)

stiltwalker

kidcat wrote: »

Am so excited - just been setting up garden and noticed my courgettes have finally grown into courgettes (rather than just flowers) so I now have a least six baby courgettes all three inches long. Question is a what point do I pick them and once I pick them do more grow??

Mine are just about at the same stage. Hugh Fearlessly Eatsitall recommends starting to pick them when they are as long as your longest finger - they are so sweet and yummy small. Do more grow? Oh boy do they grow!!! Get searching out the courgette recipes as once they've got going you can practically watch them grow. I've been out first thing and thought 'bit small yet' and been picking them for tea that night. The main stalk bit keeps growing up and sprouting more leaves and courgettes as it goes. You can also eat the flowers, they are partiularly good filled with ricotta and smoked salmon (only need a tiny bit of trimmgs) dipped in a light batter and fried.

ChocClare

GreyQueen wrote: »

Thanks for that, Ceridwen.

Is there any reason that one uses table salt as opposed to cooking salt btw? Only I have a lot of the latter and a little of the former.

Anyone know what the difference between the two kinds of salt is?

Thanking you ahead of time.

This book is translated from the French, don't forget. I think "table salt" just means fine salt as opposed to the large crystals you normally use in France - may be wrong, but I shouldn't think it would make any difference if you used cheapo value salt rather than Saxo...

Softstuff

Why is it on hubbys birthday I'm always the more excited one, and want to poke him awake so he can open his pressies???

Anyhoo, I'm up early to make sushi for 6. Hope it goes well as it's the in-laws coming.

Yesterday morning was an unmitigated disaster. A mouse it appears had eaten the bait, and had died in a most inconvenient location. I was alerted to this by a foul smell in the kitchen (that's being polite), and I began to freak out. Cue 5 hours of pulling the kitchen apart, cleaning away aforementioned body (hubby did that, I never even looked at it, he said it was better if I didn't), and then putting the kitchen back together again. Discovered that unlike every kitchen I ever dealt with in England, kickboards here aren't designed to come off at all. Ever.

Have attempted to seal off openings with some expanding foam, but according to the guy at the store, they'll chew through it anyway, so we're fighting a losing battle really. Whoever built this place needs a good firm kick in the pants. It never ceases to amaze me how poor the build quality is compared to the purchase price.

Glad to see my chickpea curry is being enjoyed. Well, relieved really, it always worries me when I post a recipe that people won't like it and they'll have wasted some money!

Now, I'm not a big "cake" baker, I generally stick to smaller muffins or such, apart from my Christmas cakes, but I baked this carrot cake and it was very successful:

http://thecakemistress.com/blog/freerecipes/cakes/carrot-cake-cream-cheese-frosting/

I just buttercreamed the top since I didn't have any cream cheese. I was pretty impressed how frugal this cake is, and how well it cuts. I made it in a round springform.

Little tip for those with springform tins, I bought a thin non stick teflon sheet whilst I was in England (I think it was morrisons), and have cut a liner for my springform tin with it. It's then reusable and you don't have to grease the tin at all.

That's all of my wittering, hope everyone has a good day.

GreyQueen

ChocClare wrote: »

This book is translated from the French, don't forget. I think "table salt" just means fine salt as opposed to the large crystals you normally use in France - may be wrong, but I shouldn't think it would make any difference if you used cheapo value salt rather than Saxo...

Oh thank goodness for that, thank you so much, ChocClare!

I went to the indy health food shop yesterday afternoon and found that sea salt is 69p/ 500g, regular rock salt non-existant and Himlayanan pink salt is £3.95/ 500g. Couldn't find any salt at all in the H & B. I know it's come a long way from the Himalaya but that seems a heckuva lot of money...plus there's the salt-miles to be considered. After all, I think they're still mining it is Cheshire, aren't they? Or maybe that's just to spread on the roads.

American survivalists mention having access to a natural supply of salt for the anticipated end-of-the-world situation (anticipated by some of them, I mean, and with a bit too much relish for my liking) as it'll be essential for food preservation and also for salt licks for farm animals and even enticing wild game under your guns. We're so used to thinking of salt as a bad thing that it's hard to get our heads around how essential it was, pre-refridgeration. I can recall that film "Warlock" from 20-odd years ago, which has a nice little vignette when the good guy time-travelled into the present about 300 years to hunt the bad warlock is asking the modern-day heroine if she has any salt, and she produces a standard-size packet of it from the cupboard and he asks in awe if this is all hers........:rotfl:

I stocked up on el-cheapo cooking salt at Mr T earlier in the year at 19/kilo with a weather eye on autumnal pickling of onions. I might just be able to squeeze some more beans into the mini-freezer but it's pretty stuffed with broad beans at the mo.

Freezing is my preferred option. However, I have some interest in learning non-freezing methods of preservation as I feel that the future uninterupted supply of electricity may not be a given. Stuff I've been reading about the fragility of the grid and that we are already pushing the limits of capacity.

Here, in the city centre, if our power goes off it tends to take out traffic lights as well and we're a high priority to be re-instated. The worst cut I've had was 50 minutes on a winter's evening; the same cut took a couple of the suburbs off for nearly 4 hours but they prioritsed getting ours back. The trouble was, the Mothership's huge gas boilers are run by electrical settings so all our heat went down until the council could get emergency fitters out here to re-set everything.

However, my Nan lives on the edge of a village and they are plagued by powercuts, typically overhead cables going down in bad weather. In the last couple of years she was off-electricity for 36 hours at a stretch. Compensation payments were triggered from the utility supplier but nonetheless, it was a bad thing to experience in your late eighties. I can recall that someone up here, perhaps several someones, had severe problems with their electricity supply a few months ago and lost a freezer-ful of food.

Everything comes at once at this time of year and the runners have started to produce and have copious flowers. Unless they get pummelled off with rainstorms and rough winds, I should have a bumper crop.

I cooked the most humungous beetroot last night, one of about 4 which germinated out of a whole row sown in the drought. What we lack in quantity we'll make up for in sheer size. That'll be a week's worth of eating nomnomnom.

Peas are on their last few pods, broad beans are all done, french beans are prolific. Oh, and I'd like to second the warning about the incredible growth rate of courgettes. They are unbelievable and go from too-small-to-pick to oh-my-goodness-that's-massive in about 24 hours. Slice them off the plant at the stalk, taking care not to cut into the leaf-stems adjacent (speaking from personal experience here) and then they'll grow more courgettes from another section.

After losing green courgettes among green leaves and having them turn into marrows I've grown bright yellow ones for the past 2 years (Jemmer) so that I can't mislay them. I find it's best to work around my weaknesses. I once fell on my face on a derelict allotment when my foot caught on a marrow which was lurking in the long grass. It was so heavy that my foot stayed put and the rest of me carried on! Caused vast amusement to the plot owner, slacker that she was, having booby-trapped the plot with these things. I know marrows have their fans, but I'm not particularly one of them and much prefer to eat courgettes at a maximum of 6-8 inches long. Much bigger and they seem to get all "seedy" inside IYKWIM.

Right, that's quite enough drivel for one morning and my teapot beckons......hope everyone has a great day.

PS; many thanks Kittie, I've mentally cast you in the role of my Guru of Food Tips, I hope you don't mind.;)

ceridwen

Charis wrote: »

I've been following the blog of this Green economist. She's very shrewd and so far has not shown signs of panicking, which I find very reassuring. She definitely knows her stuff.

Incidentally, in the tiniest print on a BBC web page, I have discovered that the US owes Britain $0.35 trillion. (=£8,873,040,000 on the day of the article)

See Who Owns the $14.3 Trillion Debt? It's listed under the picture of Obama.

Unfortunately the talks broke down again today, but some say it's just posturing. The rich don't want tax hikes.

Thanks for that - I must have an in-depth read of her blog.

Re the rich not wanting tax hikes - quite and they're just the same the world over arent they?:(

Thats a subject I've been pondering for a few days now - when it struck me that I guess I've been brought up to evaluate and give away any surplus of anything I have (eg there's many a time when my mother passes something onto me - and will usually say "If you dont want it - then give it to a charity shop"). By now there's a couple of regular assistants in a particular charity shop that look up expectantly whenever they see me come in (particularly if its a Monday - ie they've realised its most likely I'll have something for them after I've gone to see my parents at the weekend). These days too my parents are very prone to saying "Theres nothing we want, we have everything we want" (even though they are on a low income). I guess its little things like that that "train" people into thinking in terms of giving away any "surplus" they have - rather than wondering what else they might like to spend it on themselves for. (I certainly still want a better house if ever I can - but not THAT much better than I have and no "flashy" possessions - I wouldnt want riches). Hence I think "It would help a lot if rich kids had been brought up watching parents who had that much money making a habit of giving it away - and then, as adults, they mightnt be so averse to paying high rates of tax". I was reminded by an article I read recently that the rich in this country paid a 98% tax rate at one point:cool: - so why dont they still? (guess they all threatened to flee the country....:().

Hmmm..wishes it was possible to have a scheme for a "voluntary extra levy" on tax for those who know they can afford it - but would want to specify where it went to...(but I know one couldnt trust the Government not to spend it on wars/extra money for particular personal circumstances one doesnt agree with/subsidising bankers/etc/etc.....oh well...one can dream....).

****************************

GREYQUEEN

Re that salt - I made a mental note of the fact that its possible to buy HUGE packs of rocksalt for use on roads from that link that someone put up earlier. I translated that price down into "consumer" size packs and thought "Cor - now thats pretty good". Must go back and hunt that link - so I can "stash it" away.

Reet - must head for my morning porridge - 25grams of jumbo organic porridge oats with milk coming up. I havent yet been "brave enough" to try a packet I bought yesterday of "Cor thats CHEAP" muesli. I had heard about S*insburys and Tesc* having large packets of Basics/Value muesli respectively. The comment was that they are nothing like any muesli most of us would recognise as such - as theres very little in them apart from assorted cereal grains (which is true - on looking at the opened packet). I shant be buying it regularly - whatever I think of it - because its not my usual organic - but I got it to experiment with (my little mental project of "As healthy as possible v. as cheap as possible"). This is in the "as cheap as possible" category - and I was astonished at how cheap it is (65p? for 1 kg - cor...thats less than 2p per 25gram helping!!!). I am wondering if its possible to use it instead of porridge oats for porridge purposes (since there is so little of owt else in it) and will have to experiment to see what sort of porridge it makes.

The S*insbury version of Basics Muesli is the one I got for trying out as porridge cereal purposes. The Tesc* one is malted - so felt it wouldnt be as suitable.

jackieglasgow

softstuff if you fill the hole with wire wool or glass wool then block it with expanding foam, it deters them, as they wire or galss wool will hurt their nouths and put them off trying to get through it.

elona

When DH drove me to Lidl yesterday we managed to stock up on the 4 ply toilet rolls - ten for £2.34 - limit of six per customer. Garage is now well stocked with them as as we go through the stuff so fast I think my four dds must eat them!

Also got three huge packs of Daz washing powder saving nearly £3 each and some four pinters of milk to stash in the freezer. DH keeps looking aghast when parcels arrive and actually groaned aloud once to delivery person. I pointed out that if I could get basic essentials at about half price and free postage for things that would not spoil, could be stored and would definately be used then it would be silly not to take advantage.

If it turns out to be nice today might suggest we eat in the garden at lunchtime. Home grown potatoes with gammon joint and veg and maybe home made beefburgers and salad as an option for tea.

Never quite sure what veg is growing where as DH's plastic greenhouse blew over months ago and all the seeds etc got jumbled up.

Ceridwen

Might the malted cereal be good as flapjacks, twinks or crumble?

Think I might have porridge this morning myself as have spent the last week without eating bread to see if it would help me lose fat and that bloated feeling after a couple of slices of toast etc.