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.

All set in the garden

I have outdone myself this year! The greenhouse is already fully planted, raised beds are full, and only missing items from my plot are pickling cucumbers - first seeds didn't germinate so now it's round two.

The greenhouse got some new polycarbonate panels last summer to replace some broken glass panels. It makes all the difference when there isn't a football sized holes in the roof...
In April I stripped off every last remnants of previous summer's plants. I got the suprise pile of horse manure in September, so I put a nice thick layer of it to the bottom of the benches. As a top soil I used compost (cheapest one available but I have used it several years with good results).
In the first week of May I managed to sow some seeds, radishes, salad, peas, marigolds and chards.

All through May my greenhouse was acting as a nursery. I kept my sweet corn plants there, as well as courgettes, pumpkins, peas, New Zealand spinach and beans. Runner beans didn't germinate this year, I have no idea why they hate me. Last time I was lucky with runner beans was propably 15 years ago when my oldest had grown some in the kindergarden! Next year will be a new spring again...

When weather permitted planting to the plot i got more room in the greenhouse and finally was able to plant those plants inteded in there. 5 watermelons (I don't except to get any melons, but I 'll keep trying occasionally with them), 3 tomatoes, 7 peppers (I think they are sweet peppers, not chillis because the leaves are quite wide, those 10 plants were from my mother's leftovers). A couple of "jungle cucumbers" - I have no idea what they really are because the seed package was in German, I had three plants last summer. Even thought I had them planted really late, I got few mini cucumbers, the were very mild but still nice tasting, hint of melon ot kiwi or gooseberry? and some Caucasian spinach (if only I had known the same plant is also available as Scandinavian spinach which is very hardy and might even be perennial here). Greenhouse looks nice and neat, I even put some woodchips on the middle to greate mud-free path.

Ha! Made some googling, those mini cucumbers are cucamelons.

HB tilled my plot in the mid May - ground is clay so it was way too wet before that, and to be honest, snow falling from the sky didn't encourage any gardening. But it got tilled, and because I knew I couldn't fix it right away, I covered it with thick ground cover membrane to prevent weeds growing (which they did anyway, but not so much as usually - hey, I'm learning!). But now there is a few rows of potato, 50 spuds maybe? and those 15 in bags I planted earlier.
Beets, carrots, peas, bull beans, sweet corn, beans, courgettes and pumpkins. That's it. Oh I forgot sunflowers! Almost 50 plants of red and yellow sunflowers, I really hope I can get some flower this summer, at least the plants are looking good at the moment. And cucumbers, if they finally decide to sprout...

And finally there is my cold frames, or raised beds. I build two frames with our dog before he died, and it was a bit bittersweet moment to start planting vegetables to them, he wasn't by my side anymore. A couple of courgettes (or pumpkins, I lost some of the labels when kittens tried to destroy my seedlings), brassicas, peas, radishes. Some herbs (parsley, thyme and coriander) and carrots. At first i was going to plant mint there too, but I thought everything starts to smell and taste like spearmint so I planted that next to my two other mint plants, which survived winter.

So everything was ready on sunday evening, and then on monday afternoon it started to rain. Perfect timing!

Bye my Love

We lost our precious dog last night. He had a stroke and died in my arms. He was way too young, only eight, but as a big dog (after all he was a giant) life is short. I'm missing my baby, but I know this too shall pass.

My beautiful monster.

And the sky is mourning with us, it has been snowing during the day, and harsh winds from north chill us to the bone.

Oh it's May already?

Oh dear, I propably didn't notice May because all of that snow. I mean really? It was lousy winter, hardly any snow (this was the first Christmas ever we didn't have any snow in our garden) and NOW it is snowing!

This has forced me to delay my gardening. I can't sow anything to the plot yet. Even the greenhouse is way too cold to get anything grow in there. At least inside the house is warm, so my little pots of corn, watermelons and pumpkins receive all the attention for now. And I mean all the attention, we got two kittens just before Christmas (a girl and her brother) and they just love to chew my plantings. Salad I bought a couple of weeks ago and planted on pot? Eaten. Kale I also potted. Eaten and shredded. Parsely? What parsely? That pile of dirt on the floor? Didn't taste good, not eaten. A good thing I get tomato and pepper plants from my mother, she has plenty of them, she had some pouches of old seeds and thought they are not going to germinate. Suprise, they did.

If I'm lucky I can sow some kale, broccoli (purple sprouting for the first time) and spinach soon. And chard. Doesn't sound very promising, but can't help it. Too near the Arctic circle and arctic winds.

What daylight?

It's so dark. In the morning kids use flashlight to get to school, I have hunted the whole house for reflectors - in spring there is always dozens of them, and in autunm you just can't find more than three - and we need four.

I might have to start sewing them again, I have nice amount of M3 reflective fabric (the same that is used on hi-vis clothing), but I also would need some space to cut and sew, and the space is always amiss in our house...

Kids get home when there is still light, but at 5pm when I drive home,  if not pitch dark, but already need of full headlights on my car. Yesterday I got home, and D told me there's something on the field. Couldn't see a thing, so I guessed it was a deer or something. This morning I took dog for a walk and realized there was a pile of horse manure! Well, that was unexpected. Nice suprise though, Now maybe my carrots and beets will grow better next summer!

I have to wait until weekend to actually see the pile. I suppose my father delivered it, he has a tractor and carriage and here is a couple of horses in our village, he has fetched some to himself earlier this autunm.

Strange things happen in the dark.