All the way to the autunm

 It is almost the end of August. Basically my season - foraging, harvesting, receiving unwanted apples...

I have three freezers. They are full to the brim. I really had to check several times that I can close my big chest freezer properly, it is more than full. I have this nagging feeling something is going to happen - not maybe the doom and gloom all the fearmongers are preaching, but something.

Of course it could be just as simple as several appliances breaking at the same time - my washing machine is already working overtime, electric stove is already half broken.

Btw - my pantry/larder shelves are full, too. Only thing I'm low is popcorn!

I'm using it all, food is not just sitting on shelves getting dusty. But I feel no matter what I cook I end up more stuff on the fridge! Today I tackled many many containers fo leftovers. I made pasta carbonara'ish meal few days ago. I cooked way too much spaghetti (I mean it couldn't fit to my largest pan!). I had some spicy sausages hb couldn't eat (he can't take the heat anymore), a carton of milk has best before date 17th July (it is supposed to keep few days past the bbd, but five weeks is a bit more than few days), last three eggs from a carton(bbf date 12th July). We don't eat casseroles often, os is not keen on them, and I don't want to make several dishes all the time. And some grated cheese on top of everything.

It was surprisingly good, even os ate. Hb vas at his uncle's , so I didn't have to worry he can't eat.

I use plastic containers. I'm really clumsy, I was reminded why I can't use glass containers (even if it is safer because glass don't produce micro plastics) . I dropped a BIG tub of dahl straight from the fride to the floor. And that plastic container broke. If it would have been made of glass, I would've end up with a huge mess with glass shards mixed with spicy lentil stew... Now I managed to save most of the dahl, because the container didn't shatter completely. Next day I dropped coleslaw container, it didn't broke, but a glass one would've.

That is also the reason I do not want/I can not have a ceramic stove top. I drop heavy and hard objects all the time. My cast iron stove plates can hadle that. (This is something I've lived with all my life, maybe it's somekind of ADHD trait in my AS, I try to be very alert but things happen- All. The. Time.)

It's raining. We've having all rain Ireland didn't have, all rain Spain didn't have, even all rain Luxembourg didn't have! This has been miserable summer, but I think we're got the good side of this summer this time.

Double take

My dear brother has found a new hobby, film making (he actually tried to get into theater school when he was in his early twenties). He's been in reality tv show (which was a nice one, nothing to do with drama or relationships) and as a backround filler in some actual movies and tv shows with his girlfriend.

Now, I ended up in one of those freelance films... two years ago? Three years ago? but later on I've only been on the costum department*.

Next short film is a horror movie with my six year old niece. She needs a night gown, and because the role involves some crawling on her knees (as you do in the horror movies) it's a good idea to have one extra gown...

I love the fabric! It's smooth, almous silky feeling (and it is cotton!). Unfortunately it was sold per kg and it was the only bundle there, so I'm not able to make anything for myself with this fabric. The photo doesn't do any favours to gowns, they are really nice and fit my niece perfectly. Pity they both might end up in tatters...

*So far I've made a peasant costume for Medieval set, a crocheted jumper (imitating needlebinding technique) and some better trousers for medieval set.

We've been lucky (?)

Most of Europe is suffering from horrible hot weather. I got a small taste of it because of a working trip I made to the very worst area at that time (+42, thank you).

But here - no heat wave, not even standard summer heat. We've had three (3) hotter days in the last two weeks, temps were up to +26 in two days and +24 in the last day. Now we are down to +20, and during this week there will be days with +14. As the highest temperature during the day. Oh yes, nights will be colder.

That is mostly ok. If it was only cool temperatures, but we've also had massive rains, not those biblical amounts like in Spain about two years ago, but massive. Several roads have been washed away, there's flooded basements, leaking roofs etc. Our village assosiation's tent (which we rent out) damaged, it was put up and then there was this huge thunder storm and they couldn'n get it down (because of the lightning which was really bad) so rain polled on it's roof part and it got so heavy it's supporting poles gave up and broke. I need to go and check damages at some point. We are discussing if we replace it with a new one.

Berry farmers are in trouble, it's been so wet strawberries rot in fields, and more excotic berries didn't produce anything because there were no pollinating insects when they flowered. Only berries that thrive are currants and in some places raspberries.

(and other crops are suffering rain damage as well, fields are flooded or heavy rain has damaged the crops)

Wild forest berries are doing mostly fine, like cloudberries - unfortunately we don't have swamps nearby that are suitable for cloudberries. Blueberries (bilberries) are hit and miss like they usually are, but wild raspberries are doing fine. But they are not ripe to pick because of the cold weather, and IF this rain keeps raining who can go to forage

I've managed to forage some mushrooms, but it's been so cold they are late. I sow some lettuce and radishes to containers and put them on spruce logs, this seems to keep snails away. my veggie plot is decimated and I couldn't/didn't bother to put my polytunnel up. I need to figure aout how to keep growing anything with those snails... but at least it's not deers eating my plants.

Midsummer

No, not the place of thousands of murders. The shortest night of the year - or longest day. It is not even today, but was is celebrated yesterday in Scandinavia. There's loads of traditions. People leave cities and towns to go to the countryside, either their own cottage, familys' or rented one. Preferably by the lake, with sauna. Going to midsummer sauna usually means also swimming.

And there's no celebrations without food. For us it is new potatoes, pickled herring, smoked salmon, grilled meat and sausages, grilled veggies, pasta salad and potato salad, fresh green salad, more new potatoes aaaaand:

Crepes.

Then there's bonfires, dances, music festivals... And lots and lots of drunken people. I'm not one of them, and neither is my sons. We had non% sparkling"wine" to toast by the bonfire.

One thing we will NOT have is surströmming. Nope.

Food I made

Another cheap meal cooking on the stove. Yesterday I had a change to go and get those leftover foods, and I did get quite a haul! I paid 7 euros and got:

-2,1kg of ground chicken

-2 herring filets (they are heavily salted, so need to soak them before use)

-container of button mushrooms

-3 containers of sushi

-3 containers of breaded pork pieces

-1 chicken panini

-2 bags of coleslaw mix with leeks (leek is an onion, so I took those to my mom)

-5 bags of different salad mixes

-2 peeled pineapples

-2 jars of tomatillo salsa

-3 jars of roasted tomato salsa

-2 containers (they are actually in bags) of curry paste

-2 bags of jelly dounughts (10 pcs)

-1 white bread

-1 bag of white buns

- french bread (full grain)

-3 garlic and cheese breads

-half a dozen of croissants

-some cheese bakes/buns/whatsoeverthingies

-1 bottle of garlic vegan mayo

Some things went straight to the freezer: panini, herrings, pork, and those baked goods and one container of sushi. I sliced all bread before freezing. I cooked all ground chicken, and put four bags to the freezer and one in to a container in the fridge. Salsas and currypastes to the fridge, as well as salad mixes, mushrooms and pineapples.

Now I don't have to bake bread or buns in a long long time. Chicken was still good quality, but because it was already past it's use by date, I cooked it right away before freezing. I and sys ate both one container of sushi, and os and ys ate jelly doughnuts.

Because the food I get is leftovers, not from foodbank, it's not planned to make complete meals. But it is ok, I use all I can in all ways I can.

Today I made chicken curry. The curry paste was really hot, so I used only third of one pack, and mellowed it a bit with coconut milk from my freezer. I also used one of salad mix bags as vegetables (red cabbage, iceberg lettuce and shredded carrot). Boys loved it! So note to myself - you can use salad mixes in cooking hot meals.

On sunday I made potato mash and pork gravy, I had only 400g of minced pork, so I added a handful on tvp made from peas, and some soy tvp. And yes, I make gravy all by myself, not from mix (because they have onions).

Yesterday, before I got the resque/leftover/rejects haul, I made smoked salmon pasta, salmon was from one of the earlier hauls. Pasta, smoked salmon in reamy sauce, fried foraged mushrooms and green beans and broccoli from the freezer.

Now I have several containers of leftovers: potato mash, pasta (I always keep pasta and sauce separately because os will not eat mixed things apart from pasta carbonara), pork gravy and salmon sauce and ciiked rice and chicken curry.

No need to cook tomorrow!

Struggle meals

I don't go movies often, and nowadays less and less. A cheap movie ticket (monday nights) is now over 10€, and standard is 15€. Fifteen euros. When we get gift cards for movies, I usually give them to my offspring, I can watch any film later from the telly.

But, this time sys was SO hyped about this film, he wanted the book as a christmas gift and wanted to see the film as soon as possible. He's usually not so enthusiastic on anything, so I went along - after all, it is a scifi movie. I don't remember when was the last time I've enjoyed a movie so much. If you haven't seen Project Hail Mary, go and give it a chance. There wasn't a single moment I would've grimaced and thought no, no that is not how it is... Yes, I read the book right afterwards in four days (four nights) and I loved the book too. They are different, yes, because one is a book and another is a movie, things that work in a book don't work as well in a movie.

And yes, I lost a tooth, it's healing nicely. Ys hurt his pinky toe yesterday and we ended up in hospital emergency room. Yes, because of hurt pinky toe! He got is glued back one piece.

So life hasn't gone as planned.

It's the first of May, and these two days (yesterday and today) are big celebrations here - yesterday was also 80th birthday of the king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, the longest-reigning monarch In Sweden. So there has been all kinds of things going on.

It seems I'm running out of money even faster space than usually, I had to fill up gas in my car (2,19€/l) and yesterday the handle of our sauna stove broke! I looked for a replacement, 135€!!! Ok, that stove is 46 years old so no wonder something gets broken. We will fix it basically for free, but that fix will NOT last for another 46 years!

But this takes us to the thing mentioned in the title of this post. Struggle meal, poor man's meals, what ever you call them. I saw some videos on youtube, and  oh bugger! the meals I usually cook are mostly considered as struggle meals or something like that, meals that are cheap and made only when you are desperate, when you really have to stretch your pennies. Am I so out of touch to reality of most people? Things normal to me are considered as cheap/poor/struggle...

I cook most foods from scratch. I buy chicken nuggets and fish fingers and sausages/hot dogs, I don't make those by myself, and I don't make pasta myself, I buy spaghetti and macaroni and even lasagne sheets. I buy cheap meats, we don't eat steaks (or beef) because they are not worth the money. I use a lot of root vegetables, cabbage, potatoes. I forage as much I can (now it is too early to forage stinging nettle, we don't have wild garlic here - and it is not garlic, it is related to onions and I can't eat or touch it anyway, but we do have ground elder which I can use in things like soup or pancake batter). I try to grow as much as I can, I forage mushrooms and berries so much they actually save us significant amount of money every year.

Today we will be eating pork, I haven't decided yet how I will cook it. Yesterday I made donuts. I used flour, butter, eggs, yeast, milk (could've used water) and salt, and for frying ancient coconut fat I had bought for pennies. All things I had already at home, I calculated that the price of a single donut was about 6 eurocents, the price of the whole set of 48 was 2.70€ (price of the coconut oil included). I took some to my sister, and no-one complained they were "cheap", they were very happy!

Tooth Ouch!

We had a storm this week, it ripped off my polytunnel plastic sheets from the tunnel - but they still stayed on ground with all soil bags I had put to keep them in place. So a small win. Surprisingly the frame is ok, I thought it would bent or break. And nothing inside the tunnel flew away. I have no idea why, but everything is there, even the rubbish.

I'm not putting it back yet. We'll having another storm coming with snow and sleet so there might be actual damage with that. Winds are from different direction than usually, therefore the plastic sheet got loose. I was sure they will get torn to pieces!

And I'm not supposed to do anything heavy lifting or getting my head downwards.

My tooth broke, one of the molars, a big one. It had filling, that broke off and after that the hole tooth shattered (so there was a new hole underneath the filling - which was about 40 years old! no wonder it got off, I don't recall it's ever been x-rayed, so the new cavity wasn't found). I was only chewing gum. Bummer.

I didn't get an appointment on any private dentists (many of them are on vacation now because next week is first of May and people get drunk and get into accidents and dentists are needed). So I called on the emergency dental care and got an appointment on the same day - I was actually able to choose on few "Would you be able to come at ten o'clock or do you need a later one?".

The dentist was considering several options, but I asked if there's any use of trying to do root canal work if there's no tooth left to put filling in, can you just pull it out? She seemed relieved, I bet most people would like to have their tooth repaired, but I was thinking as an engineer - there's nothing to put the filler, they would have needed to build the whole tooth from the scratch and that wouldn't keep.

So, one tooth poorer now, and adviced not to do anything physical few days. Oh there will be bill later, I estimate it will be something around 150€. The bill won't hurt nearly as much as the tooth hurt!

But now I need to figure out what to do next, an implant? bridge? leave as it is and hope the last molar on the back that has had too little space finally gets some room and align itself with the others?

Implant will be around 2000€ (my co-worker said he'll need one and asked for the price).

But I'm starving (not really), I can't eat any hard or crumbly or chewy food yet, and for some reason I really really crave for popcorn and crisps and meat..,.