Saturday 10 November 2018

Day Nineteen - So What Makes It Possible ?


I've had a few conversations with people about what makes this possible.  

Living for just £1 a day for all your food is no easy feat, well you'd think it wouldn't be easy, but and it really is a but ... if you have some relevant life experience as I have, and have lived before on only a little money you learn, and you learn fast because you have to.  It's either learn fast or starve ... and when there are children involved the latter really is just not an option.  So it's those lessons that you pull from the back of your mind and put to good use.


Little things like using stems and stalks, keeping cooking and blanching water to form the basis of stocks and soups.  The water you cook things in if it is only lightly salted is very nutritious.


Washing and saving all peelings, even little bits add up when they are stashed in the freezer until you have enough to make a pot of free soup.  And again the most nutritious part of a vegetable that we traditionally peel is literally just under that peel, why waste it.


Saving the last bit of a stew, some of it strained to be used a pie or pasty filling and the liquid ready to make gravy to pour over your pastry meal.


Rationing out what you do have, especially the things that cost you the most money, this way you get to have the flavours and things that you love instead of feeling deprived.  Who would think that four little blocks of 50g of cheese could enliven meals over four weeks.

It really has made all the difference to the meals I have had using these little squares of grated up cheese.  Just a little sprinkle here and there to add a burst of flavour.


Saving even the tiniest bit of something can really make a difference.  

How easy it would have been to use up this last little bit of one of the onions, but I saved it and it came into it's own in a sandwich the day after I had used the rest of the onion on the Bean Burgers.


Lifting out just two tablespoons of baked beans ...


... meant I had enough for a light lunch the next day.


And making good use of the freezer has been essential.  

Blitzing left over sauces and stews to make extra portions for the following weeks, so that meals did not become to repetitive eating the same thing day after day.


Seeing the value of small amount of anything has been very important.  In this case a small portion of pastry left over after trimming a pasty became two tasty little Marmalade Tarts ... treats are important whatever your budget!!


And 'swapsies' or bartering.  

Sharing a portion of something I had made a good amount of, meant that on a few occasions I have felt able to take something in return that added something completely different to my food stores.  In this case the centre of a lettuce that Alan had left in the fridge badly wrapped when he went away for a week to work.  I wrapped it properly and used it in a couple of things, and two weeks later I still have the very heart of the lettuce, in good condition waiting to be used.

So it's making the most of things, never wasting anything no matter how small, or seemingly insignificant and thinking ahead that is getting me through this Challenge.  

With just over a week to  go I think I will be able to do it, and thankfully not in a boring or repetitive way.  There are still new recipes to try and lots of lovely food to eat.



😎


10 comments:

  1. Great tips and advice, thank you. xx

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    1. I'm sure you knew most of them already, you do so well yourself :-)

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  2. When I think of all the leftovers we used to routinely just throw away, it makes me go cold. Nowadays pretty much all leftovers are put in the freezer, until there's enough to make another meal, or simply added to a meal to bulk it out. Our food waste recycling bin is rarely used now, apart from bones after they've been boiled for stock. Our mothers/grandmothers never wasted any food, did they, they knew the value of all food.

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    1. Since my boys were little and the sh*t hit the fan I have never thrown food away. These days if there's something we really don't want to use, the chickens finish it off, they can now we're not selling the eggs to the public.

      Any bones we may have here (and they are few and far between these days) get added to the regular bonfire and then the ash is composted. Our mothers and grandmothers really did know the value of all foods, and I think it's time we got that back, starting with basic cooking lessons at school from a very young age.

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  3. I have been following along but this particular entry really opened my eyes for just how you are doing it. Cementing just what it takes and also what can be done eliminate food waste. Thank you.
    KJ

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    1. Thanks for following :-)

      Yes, it's the idea that NOTHING gets thrown away that makes this even remotely possible, that and making most things from scratch rather than buying ready meals etc.

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  4. Similar to when we spent 6 years on rations. Can’t tell you how excited we got making very mini toad in the holes (2 sausages for 3 people so we could freeze 1 sausage a week until we had 8. This gave us enough to make sausage rolls for Christmas.

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    1. I've read through your 'ration years' twice (maybe I should do it again for some more inspiration ... it's like re-reading a good book) and you did amazingly well. It really served it's purpose for you at the time and set you up with a good frugal mindset for the future.

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  5. Again, I appreciate most how you share your thought process. It helps me to see how I can adopt some of that even without doing a formal challenge.

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    1. I'm hoping that some of the things I'm doing this month, and then later in some of the other Challenges that I'm planning, will actually help someone.

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