Please help me become OS

Zziggi

I've been on this site for a while but i've only recently ventured onto the OS forum - but now i'm a convert!

Have invested in a slow cooker and am slowly changing the family's eating habits. What totally convinced me was i made a "slow cooker meal" last week and there was absolute silence at the table. No whining, no arguing, no i-dont-like-that-and-i-am-not-going-to-eat-it, they sat ate it all and then asked for more :eek: unheard of! I've also noticed that by buying raw ingrediants, my shopping bill is going down too.

What i'm asking for really is could someone help me decide what to plant and grow in my garden, can anyone suggest a list of store cupboard essentials for OS and any cheap cleaning tips alternatives to buying household cleaning stuff from Tescos.

So i want to get more into this OS living for economic as well as heath reasons.

I've got quite a generous garden - it's an 'L' shape. I've got a lawn about 20mx 5m with generous boarders (with a few flowers/plants) and a veg patch unused which is about 9mx11m. There's an old unused greenhouse on the veg patch. Also on the veg patch there's 4 rhubarb 'plants' and 3 raspberry bushes that have just today started producing red fruit. I don't want to reduce the lawn size but i don't mind using the boarder to grow stuff other than flowers.

House was like this when we moved in a couple of years ago, raspberry bushes and rhubarb was already established and greenhouse was left for us to use. it's perfectly fine, just got weeds growing inside it which i've started to clear bit by bit.

Am just looking for suggestions of what to do really. It's probably the wrong time of year to really use the veg patch but i'm open to suggestions. i thought about tomatoes in the greenhouse but husband said it's probably too late now - is that right? Any suggestions about what i could grow or do with the land?

Just wanted to add I've got plenty of time to spend but not much money and only limited energy to spend on it . Also am not wanting to do anything too adventurous of strenuous as husband has ME and i've got back problems so we're looking to do a little bit of gardening work often, together as a hobby rather than real heavy gardening work.

Am feeling a bit embarrassed really as we've had all this rhubarb and raspberries and i;ve never picked them and just left them. So silly really - my good neighbours asked if they could come round and pick them and i;ve let them in all previous years, they must think i am mad for wasting all that fruit.Anyway i've turned over a new leaf now....

greenlogo

Hi Zziggi

I'm not the best one for garden stuff - I've only a shared back court for hanging out washing in! but I do know some of the cooking stuff

You've already got raspberries and Rhubarb (and will do again next year) so search the site for recipies to use them (and possibly freeze the raspberries if you've a glut of them) (I'd make Raspberry and Apple Pie and rhubarb crumble but I'm probably obsessed...)

Cleaning is all about the white Vinegar

The storecupboard... a lot of it's individual as to what you like to eat, but I'd say:

Sugar
Plain Flour
Self Raising Flour
Baking Powder
Eggs
Butter/marg

are a good start for baking - adding dried fruit, cinnamon etc as the mood grabs you

For the other stuff
Oil
salt
pepper
tinned tomatoes
tomato puree
onions
garlic
pasta

and you can make a meal from just about ANYTHING

I also keep:
Rice
Sweet chilli sauce (for perking things up)
worchester sauce
stockcubes
tinned beans and pulses

Zziggi

Thanks greenlogo. I've just had a look through the recipe collection sticky and found the rhubarb crumble recipe. No more wasted rhubarb!

I have thought about freezing rhubarb and raspberries but was not sure of the best way to freeze raspberries. i thought about washing them, patting them dry then laying them out on a baking tray not too bunched up together. then putting them in the freezer to freeze. once they are frozen slide them off the baking tray into freezer bags to conserve space and to make sure i don;t end up with just a lump of forzen raspberries (incase i want to split a bag at a later date).

Was given a huge chest freezer a few months ago so thought i could fill this up with garden produce.

greenlogo

I've onyly frozen rasberries once, and that's pretty much how I did it - open on a sheet until properly frozen and then into a bag inside a box (to prevent frosting and squishing!)

Rhubarb I'd stew down and freeze then (mostly because it would take up a lot less space and be immediately useful - just chop up roughly, stick in a pan with some sugar and put on a low heat and KEEP STIRRING!

Galtizz

Hi Zziggi and welcome to Old style.

Have you been through the welcome thread? You can link straight to it from the read this first bit in my signature, that should help with what to have in a store cupboard and also where to start with OSing, though it sounds like you've made a great start witht he slow cooker :T
As far as the gardening goes I'm new to this, this is the first year I've grown anything other than tomaotes. I think the best thing to do is to go down to the garden centre and see what they've got left in the way of plants for this year, I think you'd struggle to grow things from seed but if the garden centre has the plants then you can grow them, my local one had a few tomatoes and strawberries left and a few other odments, so it's worth a look.

Next year you can plan it all (along with us on here) I looked at what we eat a lot of and grew that so I've got loads of tomato plants, a courgette plant, french beans, beetroot, lettuce, potatoes, chilli pepper, lots of herbs, onions, garlic ooohh, and strawberries hmmm.

I know you can plant herbs and garlic now (have a look in the collections thread for advise on other threads about growing these)

And you can buy a paket of lettuce and plant those now. Don't plant the whole pack as they'll all be ready at the same time, plant a pinch of them each fortnight for a continuous supply all summer.

Lillibet_2

Hi Zziggi


Welcome to the boardd, always a pleasure to meet a convert:D

Don't know what to suggest about the garden as I am not much of a gardener, my only advice is if the ground needs breaking up & tilling then plant a season of potatos as these will do the work for you & you get a crop at the end of it, but they can be hard work to plant at first so do little & often. You will have lovely loose soil ready to use at the end of the season (not sure how long the potato season is or when it is though:rolleyes: Told you I wasn't good with gardening!)

For your store cupboard I would suggest start making a list of recipes your family like/eat often & keep the basics for these in stock, Whatever you did in the slow cooker last week....what would you (roughly) need to re-create it?
I like to keep in a spare pack of tea/coffee/sugar/cereal etc so that I never run out & never have to make a tempting emergency trip to the shops, but it does depend on you having space for this. I also keep long life milk in, bread isn't a problem as we have a bread maker but you might want to keep a loaf in the freezer;) .
I keep in things like baked beans, which can be added to just about anything or eaten with just plain toast for a quickie, tinned kidney beans which I can use whole or pureed to stretch recipes (add to anything with mince for example), Oats beacuse we a) eat them for a cheap & filling old style breakfast (ring the changes with dried/fresh fruit, yoghurt etc) & b) can be used to wizz up a quick pudding in the shape of flapjacks with raisins & syrup or to top a crumble of stewed/tinned fruit. Tinned fruit beacuse I can always stretch yoghurt, make a pie or crumble, use for a smoothie, add to meringues (oh so easy to wizz up) etc etc. I always keep flour in stock, it is mainly for the bread maker but since I have started keeping it in I have found myself making other things which I would formally have bought ready made. I get by without habitually keeping tinned tomatos in stock as hubby hates them so I find alternatives but I guess most old stylers would class these as essential. I keep rice & pasta in, as it;s so easy to throw together a meal using one of these as the basis (wilting veggies? Cheesey veggie pasta or a risotto, I don't use specific risiotto rice). Speaking of which long life parmasan cheese is a good standby if you can get it & if like me you tend to go through cheese like ice melts! Some Old stylers will have a extensive list of herbs & spices, mine consisits of justs dried garlic, mixed dried herbs, caujan spice, dried chili flakes & pepper!
In the freezer I usually keep sliced peppers & sweetcorn & reduced price cibatta bread which I make into garlic bread, there is usually a ready made pizza or 2 for emergencies (still cheaper than takeaway) plus I usually allow myself a set amount of my grocery spending each week for good deals to stock teh freezer with (BOGOF/Reduced Price etc) which I then build into my upcomming meal plans.


The other Old Style practise I would really recommend is getting together some form of meal plan, if you plan partly around what you have in stock & partly what you will buy that week then you avoid tempting "special" offers in the supermarket & keep control of your spending & nutrition.

The replies will roll in to help you on this one, hope you're standing by with a recycled junk mail note-pad & freebie pen to take notes:money: (Edit : In the time it took me to type this you got 5 replies!)
HTH & good luck;)

rchddap1

Another thing for you to consider is a bread maker. A lot of us on this board have one, and I love it to bits...especially the pizzas that I can make using it. In fact recently my OH turned his nose up at a Pizza Hut pizza, saying that it wasn't as good as the ones we make at home (made me very proud).

As for the garden...we're just starting on that ourselves and have tried some potatoes and garlic this year. Next year we're hoping to get an allotment and will grow carrots, peas, gooseberries etc... as well.

eyeopener

No expert on gardening more of an enthusiast but Tomatoes will be fine going in now, infact its perfect. Growing from seed is probably not worth the hassle yet (next year yes) but Tomatoe plants will give you more than you can eat. You could try peppers as well, just make sure the greenhouse is well ventilated and the veggies watered often.

Regarding the veg patch. Is there anybody you could persuade to do some of the heavy work for you? The day to day work is quite easy (hoeing for instance) its the initial clearing thats hard graft.

Failing that can I have it?

Zziggi

i was bought a breadmaker as a present when they first came out. i used it for a while but found the bread never rose properly and i gave up trying with it. It's still in the kitchen cupboard. I'll have a look at the brand of the machine and dig out the breadmaker recipe and maybe someone could help me with the bread-rising problem?

Zziggi

eyeopener wrote:

Tomatoe plants will give you more than you can eat. You could try peppers as well, just make sure the greenhouse is well ventilated and the veggies watered often.

Regarding the veg patch. Is there anybody you could persuade to do some of the heavy work for you?

Failing that can I have it?

LOL :rotfl:

i could make tomato puree/chutney with excess toms?

Wish i could persuade someone to do some digging! Have to bribe my cousin's boy with extra pocket money to help me mow the lawn! (can't wait till the kids are bigger, oh boy then they'll earn their pocket money )

squeaky

Zziggi wrote:

i was bought a breadmaker as a present when they first came out. i used it for a while but found the bread never rose properly and i gave up trying with it. It's still in the kitchen cupboard. I'll have a look at the brand of the machine and dig out the breadmaker recipe and maybe someone could help me with the bread-rising problem?

There are tips in our breadmaking thread that will help you there. To find it click on the "Collections" link in my signature below.