September 2011 – month in review

Posted by louisa on Friday 30 September 2011 in goals, less than 12 clothes challenge, meta | 7 comments

Wow, this month really flu flew by.

Goals in 2011 progress

Sigh, too ill to do anything much. Still a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time!

Buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2011

I’ve bought LOTS of clothes this month! Partly inspired by replacements – a favourite (work) top & a (newly holey) pair of jeans had to be decommissioned from general service this month – and partly by the start of term & change of the season. I bought a pair of jeans (excellent second-hand quality from eBay), two long sleeved cotton tops (new) and two t-shirts (new). I also bought a new pair of trainers as my last pair developed a 2inch split along the sole – fixable for dry weather wearing but not for the incoming soggy winter.

Before this month, I’d bought three things, so now I’m up to nine items in 2011. A few months ago – when I had bought anything for more than six months, I’d have been surprised at that. While I didn’t NEED these things, my existing clothes (which generally pre-date the start of the challenge by at least six-months/a year) are wearing out.

Growing & Chickens

Actually, make that nine edible things

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 27 September 2011 in chickens, growing | 6 comments

After writing the last post about all the edible stuff still in the garden, I let the chickens out for a play in the garden in the sunshine.

I now no longer have any swiss chard.

I better get some bloomin’ great eggs tomorrow.

Flu and what-have-you

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 27 September 2011 in growing | 3 comments

So I got myself all stoked up to do stuff and blog about it to get myself back into the swing of things then I got the flu. The only thing that’s been productive around here in the last two weeks or so has been my phlegmy chest. I’m still not running at full steam but I thought I should try to hop back aboard the blogging train before all the carriages race away from me and this metaphor goes off the completely off the tracks ;)

These last few weeks have mostly been spent slumped on one sofa or another, watching a whole lot of films and eating a whole lot of soup. But in my slightly-better moments, I’ve done some sewing after getting a new embroidery book out of the library just before the virus hit (book review coming soon) and wandered down to see the chickens, lamenting about the sorry state of the garden and wondering if things will fruit/ripen before the frost hits.

The latter put me in a bit of a “I’m a bad gardener” slump until I realised that even with all the dead things, the things that won’t quite get there this year, the things that didn’t stand a chance and the lack of any summer sowing whatsoever, we’ve still got at least ten edible things growing in the garden that we can/will eat: achocha (outdoor – will pick soon), tomatoes (greenhouse & outdoor), courgettes, marrows (ok, so they’re essentially the same thing but we used them differently), cucumbers, peppers, chillis (all greenhouse), leeks, pumpkin and swiss chard.

And that’s before we get onto the wild greens/fruit (predominantly nettles but there are also some bullet-like blackberries at the end of the garden and the dregs of elderberries on the trees near the kitchen), the technically-edible-but-I-probably-won’t-eat-them-now things (like the new leaves/shoots on the squashes & the achocha, or the marigold leaves & heads) and herbs (rosemary, lavender & mint still going strong outside, basil & chives inside, and things gone to seed both outside & in that are still usable just not as good as before they flowered, like dill & oregano).

And it’s also not including eggs – the six girls are still kicking out on average five a day, which is nice.

When I’ve got a bit more energy/less mucus, I’ll write more about our growing year here – lots more lessons learnt and things to definitely not do next year – but this has made me feel a little better about things, that there have been some successes as well as the many failures.

What’s still on the go in your garden?

Ten minute chicken & sweetcorn noodle soup recipe

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 13 September 2011 in cooking, Featured, recipes | 1 comment

I wrote this back in August but it didn’t post for some reason. Now that soup season has properly started, we’re less interested in light soups – we want warming stodge! – but it’s still yummy :)

I usually make hearty, wintery soups but since it is technically summer at the moment, we’ve wanted lighter broths for our lunches. This chicken & sweetcorn noodle soup fits the bill nicely – not a giant overwhelming flavour bomb on our tastebuds but fresh & light, filling us up without the need for bread.

I make this whenever we’ve got some spare chicken stock – it’s a useful, quick lunch for us. If I’m thinking ahead, I put some vaguely suitable flavours in the stock – for example, extra black peppercorns, coriander seeds and galangal.

Our entire carrot harvest of 2011

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 13 September 2011 in growing | 8 comments

I’m thinking maybe HFW’s sweet carrot jam? Scaled down, I think it’ll be, for the 1g of carrot: 0.9g sugar, juice/rind of 1/500th of a lemon, juice/rind of 1/1000th of an orange, 1/500th-3/1000ths of a cinnamon stick, 3/500th of a clove and 0.005g of nutmeg.

Now where are my scales? And my microscope?