Oh the cold is here

Winter is here. Last week first the temperature went down to -5 °C and when it rose back near zero it started to snow. And then some more snow. During one day we got 15cm of snow - kids made snowmen and snowlanterns.
This week there has been rain and freeze (-8°C previous night).
And of course clocks had to be adjusted again.

Anyone can tell me this is not winter yet, but to me it is.

And we apparently have gained an another cat. This beautiful black and white (ex-)tomcat appeared on our yard almoust three weeks ago. At first we thought he was somewhere from our village - there are mind-boggling numbers of black-and-white cats in a little village! Nope, none of those cats were missing.
So we gave him food and when the freeze came, we let him in to our warm porch. I have made posters, called all animal shelters around in 50km radius and searched the net to no avail.
He has decided that he lives with us now and nobody seems to miss him.

Yesterday I gave up and started deworming, I have pills which need to be given three times. For our cats I just crush the pills between tvo large spoons and dilute it to water and give i to them with syringe. But I don't know how this fellow will react to such careless act, so I have to mix the crushed mess to his food. Well... He is very suspicious to his food now...
He is very nice cat, a bit vocal compaired to our kittens (which are over a year old now, so no longer kittens but my little babies always...)

Isn't he a pretty boy?

 The most suprising thing is that all three cats seem to get along. I'll try to get him to vet to find out if he has a microchip, but I doubt that - if someone chipped their cat, they probably would try to find it if it gets lost...?


Sudden winter of course meant I didn't get all things done in the veggie plot or in the polytunnel. I managed to plant strawberries and harvest all pumpkins and squashes, but I just remembered my pitiful carrots are still on the ground - there match sized so loss is hardly worth mentoning. Kales and broccolies are also buried under the frost and snow. Kale can manage little frost, but this cold temperatures this long might be a bit too much... Well, my freezer is full so I think I can handle this loss, too.

Not quite Approved Food - but close

I have made two orders from a company that sells expired/discontinued/slightly damaged food cheaply - packets are damaged, not the product itself. Just like Approved Food .

I wanted to shop on AF, but because delivery costs would be at least £30, it wasn't cheap shopping after all. But I found similar sites around here, like Matsmart (sorry, only in Swedish och Norwegian) -  I didn't order from there, but the site I used had one big advantage: they have listed ingredients of almost all of products. And that's very important, because I don't want to order 15 jars of chili sauce and find out in the hard way that it contains onions...

This time my order included a lot of cat food, some chocolate, stock cubes and other miscellaneous items - like five kg of rice... I paid a little under of 60€ of what I would have paid nealry 110€ at supermarket! I checked the prices, like I know that this specific cat food costs 3,89€ per box, and I paid 1,99€. I also bought a jar of chili sauce.

None of items I bought were past their "Best Before" date, and all of them were things I usually buy for us (even the chili sauce) and all of thme were on my shopping list. Ok, maybe not the 5kg bag of rice, but I would have bought 1kg bag and another in a few weeks again.

Althought there was one bargain I might have bought from Approvef Foods even with
£30 delivery...

But sadly it was out of stock.

Feeding the family with limited diet - the beginning

I first wrote "limited budget" in the title, but it's not true. The one thing that limits our eating, is all the restrictions in our diets.

We have two very difficult food restrictions in our family: Onions and poultry. I'm allergic to onions,and me and DD to poultry. That means no onios, no leeks (also: no chives, no shallots, no dried, pickled or cooked - especially this includes everything with red onion, spouse starts to vomit violently 1-2 hours after eating anything with it). That, suprisingly, eliminates most of convenience foods. If something is left, you can bet there is chicken (or somekind of poultry, because turkey is a no-no, too).  Spouse has mild lactose intorance as well as mild intolerance to trehalose (that limits his intake of mushrooms). I haven't dare to test Jerusalem artichokes on him.

One of the children won't eat whole meat, one just won't eat. And I hate celery. I wouldn't say the kids are picky eaters, but I would say that about the spouse.

Oh! The joys of cooking for this family! (but I do love this family).

So, what DO we eat?
Anything I cook.

 I have found one stock cube (made by Maggi) I can use, but I have learnt to season my cooking without storebought stock. It is easier to make same dishes day after day, but it is also utterly boring. I have tried to add more and more vegetables to our diet, and my humble aim to next year is to have one meat/fish-free day a week.

Kids get lunch at school, me and spouse have leftovers, sandwiches (or rather filled buns), fruits etc. for lunch. I cook warm meal for dinner every day.

We are lucky to live near our families. We get potatoes, apples and berries from our parents, and kids drink mostly my mother's cordials (made from currants, gooseberries etc). We also get most of our bread from my mother, I buy toast for kids' breaksfasts and buns for spouses lunches. During summer and autunm we eat a lot of home-grown veggies (this summer was a lousy one in my veggie plot). I grow my own vegetables (as much as weather permits) and forage various things (mushrooms, berries, herbs for tea). I wish I could grow my own fruits, but even apples are having a hard time around here (my parents-in-law live by the lake, so apple trees grow in their garden).

Low-lactose and lactose free products are easy to find around here, and pricing is moderate - sometimes there is hardly any difference between regular and low-lactose products. Therefore most of my cooking and baking is low-lactose, but if we have visitors I usually make completely lactose free.

I try to buy locally grown/produced food, and vegetables that are on season. Living in cold climate limits this quite a lot - there is no vegetables that grow under half a meter of snow...

And once again, winter is coming.

Polytunnel on its way

My polytunnel arrived (via postman, I have no idea how she managed to fit it into her little van). It took a while before HB was able to mow the "lawn" - the field I was intending to set up my newest pride and joy.

This is my field, youngest is pointing the area my polytunnel is about to be. Believe or not, there is a veg plot behind all of that weed.

First went the ground cover (as the field has been an actual field before) and then we spent a couple of hours to set up the frame. Which was suprisingly easy task, if you forget horseflies and torching heat of the sun (a rarity these days). On the background is my old greenhouse, on the front is a pile of horse manure.

 My cold frames. This picture was taken in the early July, peas are blossoming and pumpkin/courgette is just started it's growth spurt (and I still haven't found time to put wood chips around the frames... shame on me).

 Site managers.

Now the frame has been anchored to the ground with bended rebar bars. Once the rain stops we'll be putting the membrane over the frame (it will be August by then I guess, according to wheather forecast). I'm not hoping to get anything growing in there this summer, I just want it to be ready before winter so I can build beds in there to be ready before spring.

I thought I wouldn't have to cover my veg plot against frost until mid august. I was wrong, week ago my pumpkins got frost bite, because I didn't bother to go and cover them with fleece. So the next couple of night I bothered, so damage was fortunately limited to those few leaves. And again two nights ago I had to cover everything again! It is JULY and I have to worry about frost!

So far I have been collecting spinach, herbs and some swiss chard. All radishes have been eaten, some of them bolted. I sowed some more radishes, but they bolted right away, which is shame, because they were nice in salad. All the frowers in my pumpkins (pumpkins and courgette) have been male this far. A week ago I digged my potato bags and managed to get enough spuds for a supper. Yesterday I did it again. I'm not pulling potato plants up, I just dig around in the bag trying to find big enough potatoes. I hope they will continue to grow so I can harvest them again later. Never tried growing potatoes in bags before so I don't know if this works.