Lots of good reasons to do this – save money, expand my cooking repertoire, eat less fat (if I don’t go overboard on the cheese dishes). I’m going to keep to some staples (mushroom risotto, cauli cheese, lentil curry, bean chilli) and pull out some old favourites that haven’t been aired in a while (stuffed vegetables, bean burgers, veg omlette/fritata)). It would be nice to try out some new stuff but I’m not very keen on most beans (don’t like the texture so they need to be small or mushed into something 
) and nothing from my veggie cookbook has grabbed my attention. Suggestions welcome though
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Next week’s challenge – no meat for a week
Adventures in Urban Foraging
Or ‘A bit of blackberry picking’
This afternoon, after Rowan’s epic nap and a hearty snack (he fell asleep before his lunch!) I decided the time was ripe (!) to go and investigate our local ‘fields’ and hedges for some blackberries, with Rowan in tow.
He got very excited when I suggested he might like to wear his wellies, and was happy to be going out for a walk (although he wasn’t too impressed to be walking away from the park). He loved being allowed to roam away from me (although I could pretty much always see him) as I was taking the opportunity to let him do a bit of discovering and he was, at times, vaguely interested in the blackberry picking
Things I learnt (I didn’t do all of these things wrong but was grateful for some of them, like long trousers)
- Wear decent shoes for treading on nettles
- Wear long trousers for avoiding nettles
- Wear long sleeves for avoiding nettles and brambles (and maybe take some gloves to get to those delicious ‘hidden by nettle’ unpicked patches)
- If you’re taking a baby or toddler think carefully about what sort of sling to use. We took a ring sling which was good in that Rowan could see what I was doing and eventually he joined in by popping the blackberries into the pot but had he been a bit grumpier he would have been better off on my back.
- If you’re going somewhere suitable, take a ball to entertain older kids as I reckon their enthusiasm for picking lasts about as many minutes as they are years old. Perhaps a few more if they really like eating blackberries!
In the 45 minutes we were out we had plenty of fun and managed to get a pound and a half of blackberries, which added to those in my freezer should make at least a couple of pounds. I think they’ll all go in the freezer and jam making will be happening at the weekend.
There’s something wrong with the world today
I’ve just watched a nice cooking program on iplayer called ‘economy gastronomy’. As some typical voyeuristic BBC lifestyle rubbish, combined with some nice simple cookery, I enjoyed it. However as a comment on the people they found to go on it, I just want to say WTF!!?
This family (and I am afraid they are typical of so much of our society) did no cooking. Everything was oven cooked from a packet, zapped in the microwave or ordered from the takeaway. For a family of 5 they spent a whopping £220 a week on food. Two chefs came in and taught them some basic recipes, gave them a meal plan for the week and got hem to have a go at cooking for themselves. In order to make this happen the husband took a week off work as it was also half term and she couldn’t possibly cook and look after the kids ( although I admit the twin two year olds might have made life a bit difficult at times!)
Their new budget was £130 a week. I know people who can do it for closer to £30 than £130 so it didn’t really seem all that strict. It seems completely wrong to me that people can’t do such a simple job, even in a busy world.
I am following the story of some friends with interest. They are concerned about peak oil etc and are radically changing their lives to enable them to reduce their impact on the world and to provide themselves with the skills to survive in a world where we might not have access to all the conveniences of today. While I can’t see us changing to the extent they have I absolutely applaud their courage and dedication to their ideals and look for smaller things that we can do to change. And it’s not just because I worry about the future of the world, but because I think that a world where we have all lost the skills to care for our own basic needs is a poorer one. Cooking, gardening, sewing and other basic crafts are things that most of our generation know nothing about.
Thankfully I’m not completely clueless about this sort of thing but I am, slowly, trying to build on what I know, starting with a bit in the garden. Our lazy gardeing this year (generally having a go and growing from plants rather than seeds) is going much better than past years and we plan to be better prepared and a little more ambitious next year. Once our family size is more settled (it won’t be changing for a little while longer) i’d also like to thing about adding some more skills)
But if a huge part of our society can’t even feed themselves WITH a huge supermarket at their disposal where the hell would they be if something awful did happen? It really doesn’t bear thinking about!
Continue reading There’s something wrong with the world today