2023 Frugal Living Challenge

mumtoomany

Hi @MissRikkiC, I don't know what one planet is, we don't get out much! Have you a link? Thanks, mumtoomany.xxx

the_cross_rabbit

Hi I dehydrated apples last year for the first time. Incredibly moreish. I also dehydrate redcurrants to use in granola. 
CRx 

boultdj

Sliced strawberries dehydrate very well.

nannygladys

Theres seems to quite a few people dehydrating 🙂 any tips etc would be most welcome!! I really like the idea of using fruit especially as I grow quite a bit of fruit on the Lottie. I've been saving jars and buying a few as well, but someone suggested getting a vacuum sealer to use, has anyone tried that?
Nannyg 

-taff

I haven't experimented enough either, soft fruits obviously, raspberries, strawberries that kind of thing, or sliced potatoes too, smash them up to thicken things, carrots and parsnips make good snacky crisps if cut fine enough. I jar up a lot of stuff, Si_Clist has a good post on it somewhere in the prepping thread, you'll probably find a lot about drying in that thread too. Theres an MOD book with all the info on canning or jarring as I like to call it in there. Tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, chillies, can all be jarred up the latter three cooked in vinegar and water or white wine and water and then soused in oil...Aubergines can be fried or shredded and put in oil, spinach, cooked and frozen and chard, beans can be salted [they're OK but I prefer frozen] or let them get big and harvest the beans and dry them..

How do you generally preserve things?

-taff

Or dry spinach and make spinach powder...

Madbat60

@Glittering_M I dry outside all year around. I just check the weather forecast. I have up on a rotary line as I don't find them efficient. I have a straight line going down the garden. I get my washing in about 3.30pm and put it on airers to finish off.

Madbat60

Evening all 

Just caught up. Nights done for the week.DP is cooking chicken stir fry for dinner, it smells lush. We're off to see a film tonight which was filmed locally. I've got Meerkat 2 for 1 tickets and we take our own drinks and sweeties. Spends today has been the window cleaner. It's worth it as I can't clean my top windows and I tried all the telescopic pole things. Tomorrow I'm popping to my local hedgehog rescue to pick up one of the tiny hogs who DP found in the garden in October.  She's a big fat girly now and ready to come home.  So excited 😊 

MissRikkiC

mumtoomany said:

Hi @MissRikkiC, I don't know what one planet is, we don't get out much! Have you a link? Thanks, mumtoomany.xxx

I’m sure there are various links, I’ll grab one but it’s a Welsh area scheme where you’re able to build living space on most of the land there, if you do so to a certain environmentally friendly set of rules. It involves growing a percentage of your own food, generating income, sourcing gas water and electricity and living frugally (of course). I wondered if being in wales you’d come across or knew of anyone that had. 

https://www.oneplanetcouncil.org.uk/

mumtoomany

@MissRikkiC . Ah, I think I know what you mean now. I didn't know it was called that. When we first moved here, and I was home schooling DD3, I knew a family, also home schoolers, who did this. I think they called it by the welsh name. They lived initially in a caravan, as part of a small community, grew there own vegetables and eggs, also sold some. Others there did other things, I believe. They eventually built a cabin type house. Sounded interesting, but I believe there were some quite strict rules about what work you could do and whether you could work outside of the project, this was around eight years ago. May be different now. I believe there were a couple of Ben Fogle programs about a couple who did this in wales, in his "new lives in the wild" series.
HTH, mumtoomany.xxx