Out of office

 I'm going for a working trip. Few days away in a different country.

That means that 'Suma will be devastated, she has some SERIOUS separation anxiety (from me) and only one who can do anything with her is ys. Hb can't get her out or our gate, she flatly refuses to take a step outside our yard with hb. Ys can take her for a long walk. We DO have a HUGE yard for her to go pee and poop, that is not luckily the problem. But she will not eat, she will not sleep, she will not rest until I'm back.

She usually sleeps in our livingroom on the couch (it is bought for the dog so it is her place). But when I'm gone she will sleep on ys's room on his couch. She NEVER goes to ys's room when I'm home, never.

I'm not sneaking out of the house without her seeing me leaving -that would drive her to complete panic! I have a backpack I take with me when I'm having just an ordinary working day (even for a long one). It's ok. When I'm away overnight I have to take another backpack, so she will know I'm away longer. We tried to fool her with me taking the normal backpack, and she was competely panicked by the midnight. When she sees the "long trip bag" she gets sad, but doesn't panic.

Ok. Of course I can quit my job?

Anyway. also the children will need some prepping before I leave. I have to check there's enough tp, some noodles in the pantry and new clean and dry towels in the toilet. Hb is responsible for feeding them, but lately boys have refused to eat his foods... so they cook their own.

Few days away also means I have to check the fridge there's nothing going off during I'm away. Boys will find food,  but hb can stand in front of full fridge and die of hunger if things are not visible for him (he knows what he has put in there, so those things he can find).

But. It is what it is.

On the other hand: I will meet my new collagues for the very first time, I know we will be working hard and I know this face-to-face meeting is very much needed not only building this new team but also getting things done. Only one of us is speaking English as their first language, so working over Teams is always a bit challenging.

And it's going to rain for the next few days, so 'Sumawalks would be minimal anyway. My sweet sugarbaby will melt in rain!

it's the season of..... MUSHROOMING!

 And a lovely weather, too!

If not maybe even a little too warm? +23 and sunny.

A bagfull of black chanterelles. I didn't have much time, so this is only 3,5 to 4 litres of mushrooms (all picked so close to our home, that I was able to see our house the whole time I was picking them). I'm going to dehydrate them, and then grind, so I'll have a small jar of black dust 😂

We've been eating fresh mushrooms every day the last month, and if everythign goes as planned, we will eat them until the beginning of December. After that I have to rely on dried or frozen mushrooms. Which we will have...to much?

Batch of outcasts

Every now and then I get a message "There's leftover food". It's not every week, sometimes it's twice a week!

Usually there's a lot of bread and other bakery goods. Buns, baguettes, loafs, toast. One that's typical for this area is sourdough rye breads. They are very dark, dense fullgrain breads, some of them are soft, some of them are very tough. We eat it with soups, stews, casseroles... Not with pizza 🤣 It is still customary to eat bread with food here, so it is not just us.

There's usually some vegetables, like onions, carrots, zucchinis, apples. Sometimes bags of mixed salad. For some reason, there's been a lot of mushrooms (Champignons) and aubergines lately. Which is a good thing, because I love aubergines and my children really like mushrooms.

There might be some ready meals, condiments, I've even got a box of fresh yeast (they are 50g per piece, and I can freeze them for years) and pouches of dried sourdough starter! Half a dozen of taco seasoning, fresh herbs, pickled herring, sausages, veggie meat, yoghurts or other sour milk produce, flour, semolina...

As I'm not picky, I'm able to use things other people have already decided to give up. It doesn't mean I'll used spoiled produce or food -no, not at all! It means I just make an extra effort, for example, I prepare vegetables for the freezer by removing spoiled or otherwise suspicious parts. I slice bread before I freeze it, so it is easy to use (most breads are sold unsliced).

I am VERY thankful I have this opportunity, it really helps to strech our food budget.

Cauliflower curry and (bil)berry pie

I have a LOT of cauli, I need to do something with it. First thing to come to my mind is of course cauliflower curry.

A LOT of cauliflower! Used my biggest frying pan.

Cauliflower - 0,10€, tin of tomatoes 0,33€, oil+spices 0,30€, coconut cream*? milk?  0,20€, rice 0,60€, all together 1,60€. I used those small zucchinies that stop developing and rot or fall off the vine, handful of green beans and spinach (leaves and stalks). I don't have any garlic left, so I use garlic chives. It was a bit runny to my liking, because I accidentally added water before I added coconut milk.

There's at least two portions left with extra rice for something else, maybe fried rice next week? I was a bit shocked when I saw how much the boys ate this, I thought I could have this as my lunches next week! So - a nice sunday dinner less than a 0,30€ per portion!

Okei, hb and boys had chicken, that adds up more than 5€ for the meal, or 1,40€ per portion. But still, 1,70€ per portion!

I have three more caulis to use up! (actually I have four, because I bought one regular cauli just before I got these outcasts)

I quite often bake something on Sundays, today I made bilberry pie. Didn't have enough bilberries, so I used some black currants from the freezer.

Here the standard pie is open one, this one is my go to berry pie:

(very poor picture even in my standards, sorry)

The bottom is very easy (100g butter/margarine/oil, 1/2 dl sugar, 3 dl flour (I used 2,5 all purpose flour and 0,5 dl oats, 1tsp baking powder, vanilla sugar - I used meadow sweet sugar) and the filling is quite simple, too. Berries, 4dl yoghurt (or any other "sour" milk product), 1/2 dl sugar, 1 egg and 1tsp vanilla sugar. I used vanilla yoghurt so  didn't use sugar or vanilla. This was less than 1,50€ the whole pie. And as you can see, it is very good - I wasn't fast enought to have a picture before someones already helped themselves!

*I bought this huge tin of coconut cream some time ago, if I remember right it was 1,99€ for a 2,9 l tin! It could have been 2,99€ - it was dirty cheap anyway. I had to divide it into smaller portions. I made a nice mess when I had the bright idea to put it into small ziploc bags... But now they are in the freezer, easy to use when needed.

When no-one else wants to have

Every now and then I'm able to pick up food from ... well, it is not technically a food bank. This local lady collects out of date- food and unsellable produce from several shops. Then she gives it to people in need. Sometimes there is too much food (like on the beginning of May, when the local baker went bonkers and baked 4 times more bread than ever sold and muffins about 10 times more - he's now retired, it wasn't a good thing) or there is food nobody wants. The the lady sends me a message "there is this an that, would you like to have some?" And usually I grab my bag and go to see if there's something we can use.

So things I get are outcasts of oucasts, no-one is left without food if I get that food. (I pay her few euros for gas or give her a roll of plastic bags).

Yesterday she sent me a message "There is a ton of cauliflower and peas". Ok,  I can use some cauliflower.

As you can see, they are NOT superfresh and top quality. No, they are not, they are on their way to feed horses and chicken and compost. For normal people. For me, they are ok, I can cut away dark spots, I can peel carrots before using.

That's not all I got, I just didn't take photos of everything, and some of the priduce went to my parents and to my sister. There were:

- 8 caulifowers (3 purple, 3 yellow, 1 green and 1 white)

- 3 aubergines

- 5 zucchinies (courgettes)

- about 20 tomatoes

- a bunch of spring onions

- two kilos of carrots

- one packet of soup veggies (piece of leek, swede, carrot)

- 5 litres of field peas

- 15 mushrooms

- 4 sweet buns (with jam filling and sticky sugar coating)

- 2 bags of buns

- one loaf of sourdough bread

- few small peppers (didn't count)

- three jars of salsa

- one plum

- two bananas

I paid 4 euros (that's the coins I had in my car).

The bread and buns went all to the freezer. Some of the tomatoes were firm and nice, I sorted them out and others I roasted in the oven with some garlic chives and salt and oil. Aubergines, zucchinies and peppers went on to another casserole dish - I couldn't fit them all to one pan.

Tomatoes cut in half. Only two of the tomatoes went to compost, quite good considering those were already throw aways.

I added some dried parsley and oregano (from my polytunnel) and garlic chives to season the veggies.

They were lovely. Now I have enough prepared veggies for the next three days. Peas are shelled and I will pour some boiling water on them to prepare them for the freezer.

But then, I need to do something with the caulies and carrots. 

There were some brown spots on zucchinies, few tomatoes were a bit bad, so I used only half of those few. Peas were not sweet anymore, but they'll do nicely in soups and stews. I think I'll eat bananas and plum as they are, I've made a lot of fruit salad lately (from outcasts of outcasts), I'm not in the fruit salad mood now.

Like this one:

Strawberries were from my veggie plot, apples and pears were outcasts, watermelon was on sale 0,99€/kg. I made some sugar syrup with lemon juice and almond juice (I have no idea what it is, I got it from Italy, it gives a nice maraschino cherry taste ) AND I added watermelon rind preserve made by myself!

Prepairing for the winter...

The tarp on top of that mountain is 3x2m. We don't have a wood shed big enough. At the end of last winter our smaller wood shack was crushed by two huge spruces. And because they were huge, we have even MORE firewood to stack - but nowhere to stack.

And - of course - our biggest and oldest fireplace, the huge several ton heat reserving fireplace is out of order. It has crumbled inside, the smoke channels which distribute the heat in to the huge mass are finally given up.  There is no fix, it needs to be demolished. I knew it will come to this eventually, but I was hoping it could hold on for few more years (it's 43 years old, so it really has done all it could).

Se do have two other fireplaces in the old part of the house, so it is not a disaster as such. But it is very expensive job to demolish and replace. And VERY dirty job!!!

But, the new part of the house has only one fireplace. Some day there will be kitchen, and I need to get a wood burning stove for the kitchen. Price range is 900-9000€. I might want to aim to the lower end of the price range... It's NOT going to be an AGA!

And for the wood shed? The timber for the size of the shed we'd need would cost around 2000€. Pre-cut timber would cost around 3500€. And fot that price you still need to buy roofing.

Where is my lottery win?

It is hot - now

A week or three later than rest of Europe, we are having a heatwave. It's been +30 few days now. Quite a change from last weeks +14 degrees...

As it IS hot, I can't take 'Suma to walks during the day, we try to get going in the morning. But we also need to wait for Aunt E to finish her porridge before she can join us... I can't do anything in the garden/yard during the day, because 'Suma wants to join me and because she's a dim and a black dog, she would het a heathstroke - because she wants lo lay in the sun! I mean she's my darling, but sometimes I wish she would have few more brain cells.

I can't imagine how insufferable the heat has been in southern Europe (way over +30 several weeks). We have AC machine to cool down upstairs and heat pump to cool down middle floor. 

Meals are very simple - I cooked a big fat piece of pork to make pulled pork. We have been eating it in several ways: hotdogs, hamburgers, tortillas (or burritos? never remember which they are), in salad, in sandwiches. In fwe days I'll get my first tomatoes and maybe - if I'm lucky- a cucumber! I've already got few tiny bellpeppers, and now spinach, chard and new zealand spinach are big enought to be picked occasionally. My veggies look so much better than I was hoping for!

Aunt E is getting old

Here in my village there's quite a lot of my family/relatives. Of course there's my mother and old man, my sister with her family and my cousin. Then there's my uncle and two of my aunts with their s.o. It is very nice to have a lot of my kind here.

But we all age. My oldest aunt E is really getting old, it seems. Last summer she complained about her feet, and her eyesight is getting worse. She has real physical problems with her eyes, and she had had two operations, now there's a lot of scarring which makes her vision blurred. But it is not the problem. I think (and my yongest aunt, who doesn't live here and my sister) that she's getting some memory chellenges.

She can handle most things, but in last few months she's been saying it's very difficult for her to start doing things. When she can make herself to start something, there's no problem. And she says it's the most difficult in the morning, in the afternoon everything is easier. Hmmm.

No this week she got a change in medication (her previous one 2x4mg tablets were replaced by 1x8mg tablet) and for some reason this was something she couldn't get grasp to it. She had written down the notes from her nurse several times (and they were ok, nothing amiss there) but she was so unsure if she was going to have the right dose. (she worked over 40 years in accounting, she know he numbers). She had written and calculated everything right, but just couldn't understand.

She had called my yongest aunt a couple of times already. She lives three hours away, so of course she couldn't do anything. She called my sister, who was stuck with number three who's teething... And she called me.

One thing I also noted was her handwriting is deteriorating. She's had one of the most neat handwriting I've ever seen (another is my mother - I've not inherited it). Of course you can blame her poor sight for that, but...

I filled her medicin dispenser with the right pills, wrote down EVERY pill she needs to take for the next week and she put a mark on her dispenser what date each weekday is. She showed me a cabbage she had bought in order to cook a cabbage stew. This was yesterday.

Today I went for a 'Sumawalk and took my time to greet my aunt, too. She had taken the right pills (yay!) bus asked if I was going to town to shops. She said she needs some ready meals, because she can't just get going with her cooking. Oh dear. I asked if she wanted me to help her to chop the cabbage?

So in the end, we chopped the cabbage, then she wanted to check her blood pressure and I finished cooking the stew. I even chopped a whole onion! with gloves, of course (I can't touch raw onions). Tomorrow I'll go and check her fridge if there's any old spoiled food. I'm NOT going to fill her fridge, but I can help her do things.

Yes, she's getting older and having troubles with several issues. She lives alone, in a big bungalow, she has a swimming pool in her yard, a VERY nice garden with VERY neat flower beds, she still drives (her eye problem doesn't affect her driving, doctor has confirmed that) but everything is going to be too much for her eventually.

Eating down the freezer

 This time of the year I'm usually trying to empty my freezers. I have three, one huge chest freezer, another much smaller chest freezer, and one upright freezer.

Smallest one is half empty - it really is very very small, so we useit mainly to store ice cream (which we usually have more than excess amounts...) and if there's room, bread.

The big chest freezer is for meat, chicken and big container of berries. It has four hanging baskets which keeps all "consumables" like yeast, ginger, pastries and pasties, a tub of ice cream (because it's a bit warmer place so ice cream is soft), half bags of veggies, half bags of toast and other breads, coconut flakes and other nuts, coffee...

And then the upright freezer. It has EVERYTHING. Fish. Butter. Cheese. Berries. Fruits. Pastry and puffy dough. Mushrooms. Mushrooms. Vegetables. Mushrooms. Freezer meals (usually leftovers packed in margarine tubs). Mushrooms. Ice cubes. Sausages, ham, shredded ham. Surimi. Kebab meat. Maybe some mushrooms?

Ok, I might just got a bit over the top with the mushrooms, there is only one basket full of mushrooms left (there was about 3 just before Christmas at the end of the foraging season).

So as you can imagine I NEED to get some more space in freezers! I'm not getting another one...

So, today we are most likely to have a pork stir fry; pork, green beans, mangoldi stalks, zucchini from the freezer. I might fry some mushrooms to go with the stir fry, but I can't use mushrooms in the fry becaus hb can't eat mushrooms. I have a lot of green leaves of garlic in the veggie plot, so I use those as well. I have some bell peppers in the fridge. There's yellow rice already in the fridge, and some noodles, so I have no need to cook any carbs.

Yesterday we had chicken wings (well, not me), yellow rice, fried mushrooms and green beans and corn. What did we had a day before? Can't remember! Oh, ham! I bought a small ham right after Christmas (on sale) and I was suposed to cook it on Easter, but we had so much other stuff I decided not. I was supposed to cook it n Midsummer, but we had so much other stuff I decided not. But now even d was home, so there were six people eating so it was a perfect time to cook it. We ate ham for several days.

So, maybe tomorrow I will need to go shopping for some fresh items, like eggs and mayo - but nothing for the freezer... I promise?

When you loose almoust everything?

Today I visited my co-worker/friend first time after she had a house fire. Or kitchen fire, but result is about just as devastating.

I bought her flowers, and then I realised she wouldn't have a vase for them. So I bought a vase, too. No, she didn't have a vase. (and tea, and tiny lemon cakes and strawberries and... and... and)

With a stroke of luck, there was an empty house only few blocks away from their own house, and they were able to move in right away (insurance pays for the rent). But it was an empty house. So what do you need first? Beds, or at least mattrasses to sleep. Bed sheets, bankets, pillows. They had this guy from the local red cross to help them do shopping. He was adamant children should have sweets! (and he was right, they also bought toothbrushes and toothpaste, he clearly knew what he was doing).

But, for real. When you have to start all over again, with just the clothes you were wearing?

At work we passed the hat around and gathered around 700 euros for that family to buy something. 

She is still at shock, I could clearly see that. I promised to go shopping with her when she wants to go. (She asked my help, just to walk with her at the shops, she said she panics every time she needs to make a decision, just even if it is as simple as should I buy these navy or brown socks.)

I mean, I CAN imagine what it is like, but I DON'T understand. 

Minced meat soup

I made chili con carne on the other day. I had only big bag of minced meat (700g) in the freezer, there is a shortage of minced meat here. I try to use it sparingly, so I used only half of in in the chili.

Potatoes need using up, they are sprouting already! I got half swede and a nice parsnip for free, but I needed carrots anyway, so those I bought. And never-ending cabbage from the fridge.

Peeled and diced potatoes, carrots, swede and parsnip, and sliced a thick wedge from the cabbage (and sliced it to smaller pieces). Into the pot I added leftover ketchup from the "empty"bottle - there's always some left that will not come out. I just pour some warm water into the bottle and shake... A stock cube and some green powder, paprika, salt and pepper with a whole clove of garlic. And tumeric! I forgot about it. Once the soup was boiling, Iadded fried minced meat from the fridge.

Once potatoes and swedewere soft, soup was ready. We ate it with sourdough rye bread, which was free, too. Very good warming meal in this dark rainy day. I think most of the world thin soup as a lunch, but for us it is just a meal. Meal is a meal, no matter what time of the day it is eaten...

                                                                 (added a picture later)

The whole pot of soup (or stew, we call it soup because there is liquid) was max 4€ for five people! No leftovers, I think. (later: I was wrong, there's still 2 more portions left, so lunches later)

Tomorrow I'm going to make something with the chicken leftovers. Pasta? I don't mind I can't eat it, I'll have some leftover chili.

Now I've managed to pay all the credit cards I had to use earlier this year for car repairs. Next, I need to save up money for another surprices which are wainting to happen. I've not had credit cards unpaid at the end of the month for a long long time, so this wasn't very pleasant situation. At the same time I'm paying for another loo to be built. I haven't bought the seat yet, but I do have the sink, tiles for the walls and floor and panels for the ceiling. And there is no water connected yet. Yay.

Medieval madness

 So it's midsommar. Midsummer. We've had a warm week lately, and now - cold and wet. Yay!

But luckily it was warm and dry last weekend, when we had our Medieval Fair. Of course ys wanted to be a plague doctor- he has this black leather beak mask. Well, he didn't have rest of the outfit.

Mom to the rescue!

Idk if there's enough needles?

It's been a long long time since last time I made any garment of this detail...

So in a few days I made him a tunic, a veil/robe and a hood. Next year he needs new trousers (he has brown medieval trousers but they are not good match to this outfit, they were for the peasant outfit.

Here is ys and my lovely brother. He is ys's godfather, which is a bit strange because both of them are atheists. But it's completely another story... Oh yeah, ys really really really needs proper shoes, too. I can't make leatherwork, so have to find another solution for that. Anyone has elephant skin for the shoe soles? Maybe mammoth skin? Dinosaur skin?

(I know there are a lot of anacrhonisms in those outfits, but you just can't have it all)

We found very nice buckle/clip for ys for his tunic - but of course it's not visible. But it was only 18€, which is a bargain! Th mask was filthy expensive, we bought it last year. Fabrics for the outfit were less than 70€ (they are linen or linen blend). I bought an applewood needle for needlebinding (? oh, its nalbinding?) but I still don't get how you are supposed to proceed after the first loops... Maybe I'll get it by the next summer.

I'm trying to NOT to do any food shopping for the rest of the month. I have my freezers shockingly full, I've been able to get food and bread from the waste food distribution organisation (grand words, the organisation is a woman from my community society, and she's also the distribution system...). Now I'm trying to get us eat to eat through the freezers. Just now there's a whole chicken in the oven, it was already seasoned, so I just dumped it into the cast iron pot (dutch oven) with the lid on. Now I need to wash and boil potatotes (I got maybe 6 kilos of new potatoes), and we will have some freezer veggies steamed/boiled with them. Of course I don't eat poultry, so I'll have some pickled herring (lime and ginger), which was free.

New potatoes, butter and pickled herring with some sourdough rye bread - my summer is here.

Skipping the winter?

 I've tried to find time to write a blog post. Once I've made part of the text, cats start a fight od 'Suma needs to go out. And when I', able to continue, I've lost the plot, I had no idea what I was going to say 😆

I've had an interesting winter workwise. I've written an article with my colleagues on a real magazine (about my work)!!! Need to add that to my CV. I've got three more years in the EU commission work, and it means I need to travel abroad. I don't like flying...

The weather in this winter has been miserable. Wet, grey, soggy, lousy. Thick clouds all the time, we haven't been able to see auroras, or full moons or planets. Next week forecast says 20cm snow. Oh NOW it will snow when spring has been here for weeks?

I haven't put any seeds to germinate, because I'll be on work trip next week. After that I might be able to do something with all the seeds I need to get growing. Papricas, chillies, tomatoes, maybe ocra. No aubergines though, our summer is way too short and cool for them.

But the big news!  My sister gave a birth to a number three January, so now she has been stuck to sofa with the baby 💗  The baby is growing fast, weight gain is about 500g per week!!!

No pic of number three, but here is my field last weekend:

Polytunnel is still a skeleton, sunny parts of the village are bare, my field has some 10 to 30 cm of snow. Tractor tracks go to our forest, it's time to do next winter's firewood.