Meal plan - Live Below the Line

So, as I'm sat here with the children asleep, with a cup of tea and a rich tea biscuit with nutella on it (soon to be forbidden luxuries all), I thought I'd write out my meal plan.

I'm not sure I can afford to do it this way, as I think I'm a bit short on veg in my budget, but this is what I'm thinking at the moment. It may change to dhaal and pinto bean chilli before we actually get to the date, but here is where I am for now. It would be a lot more bean and pulse heavy already if it wasn't for the boys' aversion to all pulses except baked beans.

This is on a budget £20 for all 4 of us for 5 days. I'm hoping to find cheaper cooking oil than I have so far which will give us more money for veg, I only need a little bit but the Live Below the Line budget rules means I have to account for the whole bottle, the only thing you are allowed to just budget for a portion of are herbs/spices.

I've underlined the text below each time a new thing makes an appearance, for ease of reading.

As you will see it is somewhat monotonous, but we knew it wasn't going to be a gourmet experience:

Day 1
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: Roast chicken and roast veg, flatbread, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits

Stock will be made with the chicken carcass to use for risotto on another day.

Day 2
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: Roast chicken and roast veg wraps, rice? flatbread, sweetcorn fritters, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits

Day 3
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, sweetcorn fritters, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: chicken and veg pizza, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits,

Day 4
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, sweetcorn fritters, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: chicken risotto, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits

Day 5
Breakfast: porage made with milk, plus fruit for the boys (kiwi, banana, blueberries).
Lunch: Split pea soup, homemade flatbread, sweetcorn fritters, plus cheese for the boys
Tea: chicken risotto, plus yoghurt for the boys.
Rice pudding
Snacks: oat and apple biscuits

So what have I forgotten? Help me!

I must be missing something glaringly obvious and this lot takes me up to £19.97!

As I say I'm a bit light on veg at the moment, but I hope I'll be able to either find some cheap almost best before date veg/fruit bargains, or find some cheaper oil so I can get more veg.

I also think I might need more milk, I've put a 4 pint big bottle in the budget but I'm note sure that will see my milk guzzling boys through (as well as the rice pudding and all the porage making). Although they do usually leave quite a bit in the glass, so I guess it will just be a case of giving them less and then topping up if they want more to try and eke it out further.

I also need to look at my flour usage, I've not looked at my flatbread/pizza base/wrap/fritter recipes to double check how big a bag I'll need.

That's it for now.

All Over

Well, we have given up the allotment, finally.

We had done almost nothing on it last year, and humphing a baby over there with all the associated accoutrements was meaning I ended up never going. A 10 minute job of watering things became too big a task, even though it is only a 15min walk away.

So we decided that if we weren't making good use of it, then someone else should have it and get enjoyment out of it.

We took out a few prized tools and locked up for the last time a fortnight ago.

We hope to find somewhere with a garden at some point, having all your plants growing outside your own door seems like a much easier option! Or maybe we will get an allotment again when the baby is a bit bigger.

Signed up for another year!

Well I went and signed my missives and handed over my association fees this Saturday just gone, so we are signed up for another year.

I didn't really do anything at the plot, apart from empty the green house of some mouldy dead plants, re-attach a downpipe on the shed guttering, and tie our shade fabric canopy back up.

Oh and brought home mouldy leather gloves to wash. It has been very cold in that shed, it is all going to need a really good clean now that it is warming back up again.

But the plot didn't look as disheartening as I expected. It is a big mess, but all that work in previous years to put some structure into it means I can still see hope under all the weeds!

It is do-able - one bed at a time.

2010

I see I only managed 1 blog post last year! Not very good.

I promise we did go to the allotment more then that, although not as much as we should have done in the second half of the year. However we did get lots and lots of soft fruit, some potatoes, various beans and peas and some salad from the plot, so it wasn't too bad. We also got lots of weeds!

This year we hope to do better. However we are also growing something else, a baby due in May, so best laid allotmenting plans may not come to fruition! And I'm going to try and photo and blog too.

I haven't been to the plot yet this year, it has only just emerged from the snow and ice really, but I am going to try and have a walk over there soon.

Happy New Year!

Summer! Sun! Growth!

It seems we are having a summer, so I have been at the allotment a lot.

I will get the photos of my phone and get blogging my activities soon.

Maybe even today, as it looks a little overcast out the window.

Help the bees

Have a look at this petition:

"The British Beekeeping Association has requested £8m for the government to fund 5 years research into Colony Collapse Disorder. The government has stated that no funds exist within the existing farming research budget.

Kept honey bees provide a significant percentage of pollination to food crops, fruit orchards and of course provide honey.

This fundamental research needs to be performed in order to protect the country bees before it arrives. As in almost all cases, being prepared for something reduces its impact for a fraction of the cost compared to being unprepared.

Currently only £1.35m per annum is available to the National Bee Unit (part of Defra), this funds all its statutory activities as well as research. If there is no money in the farm research budget, then money should be made available from contingency funds."

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BeeResearch

http://www.britishbee.org.uk/bbka_research_campaign.php

plans for the future

I've been on the allotment committee for a few months now and I'm getting involved in some plans for improvements around the site. We want to get more people involved in our site, and improve the visitor experience, the place is a bit of an eyesore at the moment, which I'm sure doesn't endear us to the neighbours!

We have already given 4 plots to make up 2 large community allotment plots with various groups using them, they have had the land for a while and the lead group have just raised money for landscaping and a cabin with a toilet, so should be able to start planting it out soon. Various other community groups, some local residents, and some local schools would also like to get involved more so hopefully we can get ourselves in a position to do that.

I'm on the funding team for our committee, and we have identified the things we want to fund, and some of the places we are going to apply to. Hopefully we can put together a good explanation of what we want to do and then get it funded.

One of the first things will be a healthy eating project with the community groups: the new beds that are going into one of the community plots will hopefully be meal themed, one for pizza, one for a kind of soup, one for a salad, so the people using it can really see a link between what they are growing and what they end up eating.

Along side that we want to do demonstrations of cooking in the plots, and also collect up recipes from all the different plot holders and make a collection out of it that we will aim to get printed. I'd love for us to be able to do that one, it will give a real good sense of community inside the allotment, and also give us something we can share with our neighbours so they can see what we are all about.

Here's hoping.

It is also a time for change and plans in allotments in general in Glasgow. There is a consultation going on about allotments: their use, provision, upkeep, funding, thier benefits, security, etc If you are in Glasgow then you can make a comment, the strategy documents are available as a pdf, and it can be responded to online. Links here: Allotment Strategy. Closing date 20th June for responses.

Goethe

I'm reading the Sorrows of Young Werther at the moment by Goethe, and came across this quote which I liked:

"Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth."

I particularly like 'soft evenings' reminds me of some lovely evenings of pottering into the dusk last summer.

The Sorrows of Young Werther - Gutenberg Project
The Sorrows of Young Werther - Amazon.co.uk

A Happy Spring Day!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, and I got a serious case of allotment joy! It was an amazing day, I was working in short sleeves and we sat outside the shed in the sun to eat our packed lunch.

I had been a bit disheartened by the number of weeds, overgrown grass, and messy looking beds but we got a grip on a couple of them yesterday and I started to feel a lot more positive. I can really see it coming together again quickly now.

I also realised that two of my purple sprouting broccoli plants were salvageable; I had about 6-8 and I thought all of them were too tiny and stunted from the rubbish wet year we had. So, when I went to totally clear out the bed that they were in, I was delighted to discover might actually get a 2008 crop.

When we got the allotment last year (very close to this time of year) the only thing that we could harvest from the previous occupant's crops was the purple sprouting broccoli, and we made some great soup from it. I'm so glad that one year on we may have another crop.

Long Purple Bolivian Robin Maker

Or something like that!

I've been enjoying seed variety names today. I put 2 types of tomato, 1 sweet pepper, 1 chilli, and 1 aubergine into the heated propagator today and was luxuriating in the marvellous sounding titles. I think Purple Calabash is my favourite, but Red Robin comes a close second as it just seems so descriptive of the lovely little bushy plants of cherry tomatoes that it will produce - perky and cheeky!

On a grey day like today the exotic, warm sounding names were giving me a lot of joy. However as well as the Doux Long des Landes, and Bolivian Rainbow their was one name that is recognisable, steady and traditional sounding.

Exerting a calming influence the reliable Aubergine Money Maker will keep the rest of these flighty numbers in line!

smoothie charity

I guess if you have an allotment or garden you will normally make your own smoothies (we have this year with our raspberries, strawberries and the rhubarb made good ones too). However innocent smoothies are tasty too (when the fruit runs out) and now they have just got cute and charitable as well.

To raise money for age concern they are asking for people to knit little hats for their smoothie bottles, these will then be sold in Sainsbury's during November and 50p from each bottle will go to age concern. They got 230,000 hats last year (so £115,000) and this year are aiming to raise £200,000 by getting 400,000 hats on bottles. My mum gave me a leaflet on it and I have knitted my first one this afternoon:


modelled here by a Thirsty Planet water bottle (you don't have to buy any innocent products to join in).

If you want to join in they you can find the patterns and details here. Any little knitted hat of a similar size is acceptable, so if you have rather more advanced knitting skills you can go to town rather than following their 3 patterns. Check out their blog section for photos of some amazing ones in shapes of animals etc.

Happy knitting!

living off the land

We were just musing the other night how great it is to be popping to the allotment in the evening to collect food, rather than popping to the supermarket. Stuff is so fresh and tasty, and it is really relaxing too just wandering around seeing what is ready. It makes for slightly random meals, but that is quite fun too.

I'm really enjoying it, and plans for how to fit more beds in are afoot. More beans and peas are definitely on the cards, I think we might ditch rocket and spinach (but stick with perpetual spinach) and have more lettuce - which can go inbetween lots of other things. Carrots we are dithering about, they take up quite a lot of room, but carrot cake with fresh carrots is lovely!

And more strawberries, the plants are now sending out runners which is good.

All in all I think these first few months have been good.

Mmmmmmm-mmmmmmm

Harvests continue aplenty.


Latest recipe is a pea, bean, feta and mint salad. Equal amounts of peas and broad beans, then proportionally slightly more feta, and as much mint as you fancy (lots!). Mix in with salad leaves and add lemon juice and olive oil to dress. It's fantastic.

Also good were noodles with chilli (3 tiny ones from our plant), bacon and peas, topped off with caramelised shallots and finely sliced plum tomato. The tomatoes were the first from one of our plants and they taste fantastic, really fragrant.


I'm now wondering what to do with cucumber (no sniggering at the back) as we have two approaching readiness. I've seen a garlic chicken and cucumber recipe on the beeb site that looks promising, and also cucumber salsa to serve with fish, so I might try those. And there is always tzatziki (sp?) and raita.


We also made raspberry and strawberry cheesecake, doesn't really count as from the allotment as only the fruit on top didn't come from the shop, but I had forgotten how good proper homemade cheesecake tastes. Really simple too: digestives, butter and sugar for the base; cream cheese, greek yoghurt, double cream, and icing sugar for the top. Just add fresh strawberries and raspberries.


Mmmmmmm-mmmmmmm

at one with the land

MrUrban said yesterday "thanks for making us get the allotment" and I realised how much we have both been enjoying it.

In a way it doesn't matter if we even get any vegetables out of it (although we have already had salad and, of course, the rhubarb) - we are feeling fit and healthy; it is an excuse to be outside, and have barbeques; and it is just hugely pleasant to sit there noticing small things growing and watching our resident robin noseying at what we are doing (I'm going to try and get a pic of him but he flys off every time I reach for my camera).

It is also great to have people to say hello to, and somewhere to go. I work at home and have made a decision to try and get to the allotment every day. I really think it has helped me on a day to day basis, I feel a lot happier having that little patch of outdoors that I can go and visit.

Here's to cups of tea and plant watching.