Long time no see

So it's past Mother's Day and I'm hardly advanced my veggie plot at all.
Well, I have done several things.


Nature has slowly crawled and boldly leaped towards summer. First there was yellow sea of coltsfoot, and then one of my favourites, liverworts:

Along our walks we saw some almost white ones, normal blue ones, pink ones and dark purple ones. These are very pale blue.

I found again some whole milk reduced, and made cottage cheese. Still some milk left, so I wanted to try making yoghurt. After some googling I made a batch in crock pot, I was very suprised I actually got edible product!

I used turkish yoghurt as starter, final yoghurt wasn't as thick as original, but edible. Maybe it tasted a bit boiled because I had trouble timing everything, but nevertheless I'll make some more when I find whole milk reduced again.

I found strawberry plants that were grown in a big plant nursery I visited earlier, and I know they are excellent quality. I bought 20 plants, 10 early variety and 10 late variety. They have been planted now, I built a new frame for them. I have now 29/30 strawberry plants, maybe we can eat some berries all summer?

Ys helped watering. I ran out of ground cover so I used newspapers.

I bought small plastic greenhouse for the polytunnel, there are my brassica seedlings, some spinach and beets.

Still like chaos, but it's working.

Radish and lettuce in polytunnel

Ugly as hell but working.

 My suprice garlic. After all this work I found yet another one sprouting in one of the cold frames, but I'll plant it in the middle of this monstrosity when I have extra 5 min. Cold frame on foreground has more garlic - they were all supposed to be there, but stuff happens. And that cold frame was frozen when I moved those ones that ended in that brick thing, so I really had no options.

Since last time I wrote post on the blog, my rhubarb and lovage have proven to be alive (as well as horse radish). These, however, are not from my plants, they are from our neighbours garden.

Short but tasty!

 I had two options, soup or pie.

Well, if you ask children, it's pie every time! Rhubarb pie and rhubarbless pie for os who doesn't eat cooked fruits. or maybe this is bake, but whatever, it was yummy!

Spring took some serious setback for two weeks, we had snow and frost and freezing days. Now it
seems cold is finally gone and we can start eating from our garden/yard/field/forest...

First we had nettle pancakes, kids love them. Just ordinary pancake batter, some blanched nettles and stick blender. Can be eaten as savory dish (like ys with ketshup) or as sweet (like os with sugar or like sys with whipped cream).

But maybe even more important to me is fireweed, which I use as asparagus or as any other green veg.

This lot ended up lunch as omelette.

 And while I was cooking another lunch for me, it occured to me that I'm turning in to Ilona!
 

Stuff I found from fridge (leftover rice and corn, some old pepper, some ground elder, grated cheese and and an  egg. And spices.

 If I lived alone I might be able to live on food I forage and grow (well, I would need a root cellar and few freezers). Now it's time for first mushrooms!

Which are deadly poisonous, btw.  Gyromitra esculenta, sometimes known as false morel. Lethal if eaten without proper preparation. A bit like fugu. Nice if done the right way (boil 3x5min at time with plenty of water in place you have good ventilation, rinse between every boil). There might still be some poisonous gyromitrin left, so it is not recommended to eat several false morel meals in a row.

Gyromitra perlata, nor as poisnous as it's cousin, but I wouldn't eat it without the same preparation as false morels. Pictured this morning at 'Sumawalk. Worms are actually birch catkins.

But. Veggie plot is tilled last weekend, if it's dry enough this week I'll start planting and sowing soon. We have been sick, and I did a night sift last week - not my piece of cake and hb is doing them all the time (ok, I had to work first the normal day sift and then back at work at ten and then again working on the next day). Usually I'n doing night sifts at weekends so I have time to recover.
Cukcoos are back, so it really is nearly  summer. Even if it snows occasionally.

I was unsupervised at IKEA

It's been raining for five days. A lot of water. And everything is so wet, damp and/or otherwise miserable. Snowbanks has sunken (Oh joy, I can again shovel snow over the banks...), forest floor is full of branches. Squirrels have been busy, there's a carpet of spruce shoots under every big spruce (and we have quite a many big spruces i n our forest). Roads got slippery, and after four days of rain they turned into soft mush, so driving is nerve wrecking.
Sys had a homework, he had to plan a meal and prepare it. After weeks of contemplations he finally decided he wanted to make meatballs and spaghetti. The way I do them.

So, he made tomato sauce (I might have taken idea from Nigella? originally): garlic, carrots, beet root, tomato passata from tin, crushed (dry) broad beans... beans were ys's idea, because he doesn't like meatballs, and I told he might need some alternative source of protein, so he told "You could put beans in tomato sauce and liquidize it". He used a kilo of minced meat! but so of it went to 'Suma and kittens (and Pretty Boy got some, too).
But meal was served and it was plenty. And delicious, as always...

After that I have been digging to my stores of fabrics. So far I have found Harry Potter print, two owl tea towels (don't have a clue where I have gotten them from?) red denim, black denim (4m, I have bought it for 6€, it still had price tag), one Harry Potter book I didn't know we had, and a plastic bag full of strings for present wrapping. Now I know where they went. And four euros, and scarf I couldn't find in autunm. No idea why coins or the scarf were among fabrics.
I was looking for blue denim.

Because I found two armchairs from IKEA at 30€ each but they don't have covers. And I had this wonderful idea of sewing those covers by myself... Because I was sure I have some denim at home which would be perfect for those armchairs...
I think I don't have enough of blue denim for one chair, but I have just enough black for another.

I wasn't really looking for armchairs, but we need a new one (now we have two leather armchairs from 80's and they are ripped a part by... 'Suma). And my sister has her birthday just around the corner (and a round number, too).

So we brought home two armchairs and now I HAVE to sew covers for them.

Oh bugger.

Last big expenditure this year?

I just called the vets and made an appointment for 'Suma. 700€.
That's the price I'm willing to pay for not to have puppies in this house - it would be much cheaper with male dog.
I might have had the procedure done cheaper some other place, but I trust this place. We have been using them since 90's when we had Ace, the first Giant Shnautzer. Then it was important that the vet wasn't afraid of him (one vet was so nervous around him he vaccinated me by accident!), we did visit several vets.

But this money has been reserved since January - when we got 'Suma. We knew this coming so no suprices.
The IPCC report on climate change has made me thinking about having pets. I might not be able to justify keeping big dogs just because I like big dogs. I should get smaller dog after 'Suma (well, she is smaller than Blackie was) but I don't actually like small dogs. First world problems at its worst...
Cats I can justify because they eat mice and voles, and in Pretty Boy's case he just decided to live here.
(nobody is questioning about my choices but me)

Need to change winter tyres soon, should be ok with ones we have already, no need to buy new. Or maybe two tyres to hb's car, because it's heavy and eats tyres more than I eat doghnuts.
Polytunnel is nearly empty, only herbs staying. need to take down the poly-part (covering) so last years disaster could be avoided. Need to build frame for garlics (have few days off next week). Need to empty compost bin. No need to buy anything fot the veg plot or polytunnel or greenhouse.

Found wintercoat, paid only 11€. It doesn't have a hood, so i have to knit one myself, if my old scarves won't do. Haven't found wellies yet. Bikers calfs don't fit narrow boots (I had this problem when I was a underweight kid, 10km a day minimum with old bike did it, never had weak legs).

No idea of dinner once again. SYS will bake buns today, a school task. Omelette?

Going nuts

I have bought food (and other stuff like cats' treats) from net store similar to Approved food   (I've better not to look up AF because I can't make an order because of postal fees) once every two months. But now I have a problem. Last order a month ago included a box of muesli bars (with lots of nuts but no raisins). Which were delicious. Note "were". ES, who doesn't eat, ate those bars, and told me he had eaten all of them.
So. A teenager who doesn't eat has found something he likes, and it costs twice as much elsewhere... They are also high in energy and high in fiber, which both are lacking in ES's diet. Should I make an order - there is also cheap(ish) puppyfoor for 'Suma.
Should I take the risk they won't be available anymore in next month when I was planning to make another order?

Sooo... Of course I made an order. Byebye money and well-laid plans.

I have spent a lot of money this year so far. Money for nothing occasionally (I had to buy car parts to my car and the it appeared they were wrong parts and the fault wasn't in those parts anyway and NOW I have to buy another part and that is also not free). Money well spent, too. I bought my first reading glasses, but I got them cheaply (kind of) because my old friend from school owns the place. Hope I learn how to use them, because honestly - I haven't been able to read that small print on labels for two years now.

On the other hand I have been doing good stuff. I have kept the house warm mostly with woodburners. I have been experimenting on different meals, made veggie burgers (first time ever) and fish cakes (second time ever). Veggie burgers not so great succes with kids (though D really liked them; next time I won't be using so much tarragon), and only two kids liked fish cakes, but hb ate them with vigour.
Last night I made omelettes, one with really really cheap sausage (hb loves that stuff, he doesn't like meaty sausages!), one with cheese and one with spinach. 7 eggs (10c per egg), a splash of milk (5c?) leftover cheese (max 50c, likely much less), 50c for the sausage and maybe 10c for butter, spices and electricity. So 1,85€ meal for six people and leftovers for hb's and my lunch, not bad.
On the other day I was raiding the fridge and found several seen-the-best-days-a-long-ago veggies like swede, cauliflower, broccoli, some iceberg lettuce, diced tomatoes... So I made soup. Now I have 9 containers of soup (each 2 portions) in the freezer for me to take to work for lunches. With free bread (provided by my mother) they make pretty cheap lunch.

This weekend I'll be browsing my seeds for the next summer. I think I have everything I'd like to grow - I had to adjust my plans because the crash of polytunnel, but with this kind of winter it really doesn't do much difference. Growing season won't begin before late April.
Maybe I'll sow some chillis?

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.