Frugaldom: beans

Frugaldom is a voluntarily run recreational project. It is home to an abundance of wildlife, ponies, goats and feral cats. Set in rural southwest Scotland, we have dark skies and views of the Galloway Hills. We promote frugal living, recycling, sustainability and nature conservation. The site offers park-up for self-sufficient campervans & motorhomes (max 7.5m), off-grid hutting and wildlife watching opportunities. Open all year. You can join Friends of Frugaldom to help support the project.

Showing posts with label beans. Show all posts

Monday, 10 March 2014

Day 10 of Making it in March - Would You Eat Springbok, Kangaroo or Zebra?

Day 10 of 31 - Mung Beans, Quiche and Crazy Food Questions!

Today's first 'make' was a second bean sprouter!

My homemade mung bean sprouter seems to be working but there's a slight problem - I added too many beans and they'd totally filled the jar by the time I got up this morning!

Sprouting mung beans

I can easily see why bean sprouts can be a frugal source of nutrition but I was somewhat surprised by their technical dietary data. A one-cup serving has the equivalent of 6g of carbohydrates and two thirds of that is sugar!

'Phoebe' duck has been doing well and producing an egg each day, so I had yesterday's and today's to use, meaning 2 more shells to turn into mini planters. I now have these cut and primed, ready for painting tomorrow, so I'll need to get some more macramé done to keep up with the egg laying.

Cheese & onion base for quiche

To use up the remainder of the pastry from pie-making, I rolled it into a tray, added a diced onion and a sprinkle of grated cheese then baked this with the two duck eggs beaten with a little milk, salt and pepper. Quiche for tea tonight and we'll eat the rest tomorrow lunchtime. (Sorry, I forgot to photograph it coming out of the oven.)

Onion rerooting - I think?!

On the 'veg for free' experiment, the first of those musty peas have begun to sprout in the tin can planters on the window sill and, believe it or not, the ones I threw into the planter at the back door also seem to be germinating! The red cabbage base is amazing, with more and more tiny leaves unfurling all around the base and across the cut surface. The photo above is of the onion base, although I am not convinced this one is at all possible. I mean, how can another onion grow from it? I think someone's kidding me on about this one, but I'll leave if for now.

VEGETARIANS & VEGANS, LOOK AWAY NOW!

http://www.musclefood.com/hidden/?code=SK5873

The above is a competition sponsored by MuscleFood.com and I am hoping that I can gain an entry in order to be in with a chance of winning, so if you haven't already done so, but have been considering it, give them a go for your meat order and have it delivered to your door. Not many can beat £5 per kilo for quality chicken breast fillets. But I have to warn you, their 'exotic meat' section is becoming more and more exotic!

Choice of freebies with your first offer

I was quite perturbed at seeing horse steaks listed but will admit that I have unwittingly eaten this in the past while on holiday in Europe. Now, however, their free offer for new customers has been expanded to give you a choice of meat free with your first order - tonight I see horse steak is one of them! Not sure what to think of this... but do take a look at what is available to buy for home delivery! It's quite an eye-opener to see:

Springbok steak burgers
Zebra haunch burgers
Tilapia fillets (I had to search that one to find out it's fish that the southeast of England is apparently going crazy for - recipe included here!)
Kangaroo steaks
Buffalo stew
Ostrich steaks
Horse meat variety pack

What are your thoughts on the above list of meats and would you eat them? Is it just my upbringing on plain foods? Or perhaps my lack of interest in culinary adventure? Maybe it's simply lack of choice by way of my continued rural lifestyle or it could even be a deeply rooted, Old Testament induced belief on what's 'allowed', as far as the food chain is concerned?

I don't know... I have a fear of the unknown, but perhaps a bigger fear of actually discovering I like something that I otherwise 'shouldn't'.

Making my mind up about this could take some time, as I do remember the big meat scandal when authorities discovered container loads of kangaroo meat coming into Britain and ending up in school meals. That was in the late 70's, early 80's, so we do know that this sort of exotic meat has been reaching our shores for the past near 40 years, at least, but ... no! I won't pursue my line of thought because I'll end up sitting until midnight blogging for The Paranoid Times!

NYK, Frugaldom

Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Day 5 of Making it in March - Hot Dogs and How to Make a #Frugal Bean Sprouter #MIIM

Day 5 of 31 - Spuds, Tin Cans, Sprouters and Hot Dogs!

Lemon & mango drizzle cake

Here goes for day 5 of my 'Making it in March' challenge.

The day began early, as I didn't want to miss the coalman when he was driving along the lane. The coal bunker was almost empty, so best filling it up in the hope that it does us through to spring. 5 x 50kg bags costs £70 and we get through about 10kg each day the fire is lit. Price wise, there isn't much difference between coal and logs, except the coal, in this house, also heats 5 radiators and the water, not just one room.

I made the most of the extra 'morning time' and baked the remaining cookie dough (mango, apricot, fig, pistachio & almond) then baked a lemon drizzle cake, but added in some of the mango pulp to try and use that up, too.

POTATOES

Seed potatoes 'chitting' in egg cartons

The above are my 2014 indulgence of the year, so far - heritage seed potatoes! On the left are the Shetland Blacks that arrived a couple of weeks ago and on the right are my Salad Blues, which arrived a couple of days ago. They are sitting in cardboard egg boxes to allow them to 'chit'. ('Chitting' is the gardeners' term for letting them start to sprout.) The Shetland Black is a dark-skinned potato with white flesh that carries a blue/purple ring around it. The Salad Blue, which isn't really a salad potato, is my favourite of all time, both for growing and eating. These stay deep purple throughout cooking, so you can get some very colourful and interesting mash!

The potato peelings I kept

Last month, during my 'Extremely Frugal February' challenge, we had a fabulous time stretching the pennies as far as they would go. It was a month of finding out just how extreme we could be in our quest for moneysaving and zero waste, so even the potato peelings were being saved. (Link to post)

Planting the sprouted potato skin

My potato peelings are normally treated as organic waste and added to the compost, fed to the garden poultry (potato peelings need to be cooked first), added to the wormery or used to bank the fire at night. But I wanted to show you that from one potato can come many, so I picked out the best sprouted piece of peel and it has now been planted into a tub on the patio. With care and luck, this piece of peel that would otherwise have been discarded has the potential to produce over 1kg of potatoes.

TIN CAN PLANTERS

Making tin can planters safe

I do love my tin cans - I'm collecting them all for a specific summer project but keep dipping into them for other things! Before you make anything from them, make sure all the sharp edges have been flattened.

Don't forget to add drainage holes in the bottom of the tins

I managed to fit a dozen tin cans onto an old baking tray. I'm using a piece of non-slip rubber mesh underneath so there's no water-logging.

Ready for planting

Remember the damp pea and bean seeds that I washed and soaked to try and save them? I have now filled each of these tins with compost and vermiculite and added a row each of the runner beans, dwarf beans and peas. We'll soon know if they are still 'alive'.

Wrapped wallpaper around them to prevent spills

After wrapping some old wallpaper around all the tins, I sat the tray on the windowsill and have topped it with the glass out of the broken picture frame. (You know the one - I used part of it to make the apex roof for the cat's den yesterday.)

SPROUTING BEANS INTO BEAN SPROUTS

Mung Beans

Frugal living means making the most of anything we can make or grow for ourselves. Mung beans are great for sprouting and adding into salads and stir fries and let's face it - frugalers love their home grown salads and their 'leftovers' stir fries. But how do we sprout mung beans without a fancy, extravagant sprouter?

Homemade frugal sprouter

Get a clean jar with a screw cap metal lid, a hammer and an awl. You don't even need the hammer, as most jar lids are now thin enough to pierce with minimal force. Now punch a whole load of holes in the lid - do this on top of thick card or a folded towel to avoid scoring or puncturing floors or worktops. Now give everything a final rinse.

Hey presto! A homemade sprouter

Place a couple of handfuls of mung beans in the jar and rinse them several times with water. Take the lid off to add the water, screw it back on again to drain the water back out of the jar.

Easy drainer

I'm leaving my mung beans to soak for 24 hours before giving them a final rinse. I'll follow up this post with progress as and when I see anything happening in the jar, which is now on a shelf in my kitchen.

HOT DOGS IN HOT DOGS

99p bread mix and cheap hot dogs

Now before anyone starts commenting about the unhealthy aspects of this snack, hold your typing fingers still and let me explain - this was an inexpensive and fun experiment and if we were having it as a proper meal, I would normally serve this with onions, cheese and tomato and/or plenty of salad stuff. Today, however, lunch was just a hot dog with tomato ketchup. Cost = less than 5p per person! Worth a shilling for the novelty factor alone!

Knead and prove your dough

Bit of cheating going on here as I am using the 99p per 3.5kg bread roll mix I got from Approved Food*, so it's a simple case of 'just add water', mix, knead, rest, knead, rest, split into finger roll size, wrap around a cheap hot dog, leave to prove for 20 minutes then bake for about 20 minutes.

- PHOTOS DELETED -

I did take a full set of progress photos but to be perfectly blunt, I fear some may have found them obscene! So here is the finished article.

Use smaller pieces of dough for legs and ears

Bake the rolls with the hot dogs inside them - I used the cheap tinned hot dogs, I think they were 5 tins for £1 from Approved Food when I bought them!

Hot dog rolls

I made only two 'hot dogs in hot dogs', one for each of us here in Frugaldom. I got some very curious looks when I presented 'the dog' on a plate at lunchtime today, that's for sure! We'll need to eat the other rolls tomorrow lunchtime to use up the rest of the hotdogs, too!

Now I am retiring to bed with a cup of tea and planning out my next phase of rag rugging!

NYK, Frugaldom

References and acknowledgements
http://www.goodshomedesign.com/hot-dog-dog/

* Friend referral link - thank you for my £1 commission earned this week. :)

Friday, 27 September 2013

How to Make Frugal Piccalilli (Stage 1)

How to Make Frugal Piccalilli – It’s Frugalilli!

With a mountain of cucumbers and a fridge full of vegetables needing used, what better way to try preserving some vitamins in a tasty snack than to get them pickled?

Simple recipe that I hope works and an overnight salt bath for the vegetables… read more

Thursday, 19 September 2013

Cheap Coffee Beans

Cheap Coffee Beans
Seeking out the best bargains isn't always easy! Prices don't necessarily determine what is and what isn't a bargain, that's for sure, and all too often we can fall for those fluorescent stickers and stars that have us brainwashed into thinking they represent a cheap and cheerful buy. Lookalike names fool us into mistaking them for something better and, as a household of coffee drinkers, I have been caught out by this when searching for cheap instant coffee. Read more…

NYK in Frugaldom

Monday, 21 November 2011

Money Saving Recipes, It's Frugal Gourmet...

Beans on Toast With a Difference!

This may not be your idea of a gourmet meal but it is frugal, tasty and nutritious.

With the price of a tin of baked beans in tomato sauce creeping up and up, I decided it was time to get to grips with making my own. I already bake all the bread for the household, so why not make what goes over the top of it when it's toasted? Cheap baked beans are becoming tasteless, bland and uninteresting!

This was a bit of an experiment, as I was too lazy to search out a recipe for the sauce, but it worked. In fact, it worked so well that we had eaten our tasty lunch before I even remembered that I should have taken a photograph for the recipe blog! I'll try to remember next time.

Dried Cannellini beans had been on offer at 49p per 500g pack, so, when the opportuity arose, I 'invested' in 4 packs. As dried foods go, this type of foodstuff lasts a long, long time, so 'sell by' and 'best before' dates can pretty much be ignored.

I soaked a cupful of the dried beans overnight in cold water, then rinsed them off in the morning before setting them to boil rapidly in a pan of water for about 10 minutes. (Do not salt the water, as this is said to toughen the bean skins as they cook.)

After boiling them, reduce the heat and simmer for around an hour and a half. Had I been making a larger quantity, I would probably transfer them into the slow cooker and simmer them that way, but I find there's little or no difference in price of electricity used when comparing cooker-top simmering to slow cooking, especially when using small quantites.

Once cooked, drain and rinse the beans then set them aside while you make the sauce.

For the sauce, I cheated. I had jars of cheap pasta sauce in stock (cheaper than tinned chopped tomatoes), so I used the following to make the sauce:

100g of cannellini beans (9.8p)
1/2 jar Sainsbury's Basic pasta sauce (9p)
tablespoon of tomato puree (4.5p)
teaspoon of sugar (4.4p)
1/2 teaspoon salt (0.2p)

Total cost - 27.9p

All of the above were mixed together - sample the sauce so you can make any adjustments to flavour, then add the beans.

The above was left to cool then refrigerated overnight, as we didn't need them on the day. This, afterall, was just an experiment on a small scale.

Today we had toast with the beans topped with grated cheese (50g cheddar cheese - 28.4p) and thoroughly enjoyed them.

I do realise that for many it is easy to just nip to the nearest supermarket and pay around the same price for store's own basic brand of baked beans, but when you live 20 miles from the nearest supermarket and follow the code of frugal living, popping to the shop isn't an option. To be honest, I think the homemade variety tasted much nicer than any shop-bought baked beans I've ever bought.

I can recommend Frugaldom beans to anyone. The herbs from the jar of pasta sauce added that extra flavour and, I'm guessing, also added a couple more vitamins to the mix. It's probably what turned the Frugaldom version of beans on toast into a frugal gourmet lunch for two.

NYK Media
www.scottishmultimedia.co.uk

Saturday, 24 September 2011

Frugal Photographic Fun - Picture in Picture

September Sunshine and Fun in the Frugaldom Garden

Part 2

Following on from my earlier post, I have now had a closer look at the original photographs and found many more contained within them.

I spotted several things that I hadn't even noticed while taking them, so quite a few frugal bonuses and rather fun searching the photos for hidden 'clues' to what's really going on in the garden.

The initial view of the garden, on closer inspection, revealed several runner beans that are ready for picking. I'm amazed that the rabbit hadn't already helped herself to these.

This fly was one of a few that were on the sunflowers.

I'm not a great fan of creepy crawlies or flying beasties, but I was really impressed by how the bright yellow of the sunflower petals highlighted the lace pattern of the wings.

If you look closely, you can even see this fly's hairy little knees and feet!

What do you think of this sunflower yellow? It's fabulous!

Sunflowers are really quite amazing. The closer you look at them, the more fascinating they become - this brown mosaic swirl is the very centre of the flower. Each one of these will become a sunflower seed one day soon.

For some strange reason, this reminds me of an armadillo!

Moving further out from the centre of the sunflower, I spotted this strange array of what looks more like they should be swaying on the bottom of the sea bed!

I can highly recommend playing this fun and frugal game. Out of a few digital photographs, I have managed to highlight several aspects of the garden that would, otherwise, have been overlooked. (Family like to see the photo diaries, as they aren't close enough to visit in person on a regular basis.)

Hello MUM! :)

Along the dry stone wall, beyond the pumpkins and kale then past the sweet peas, there are still hundreds of rosehips of all colours.

Despite the autumnal weather that seems to be fast approaching, there are still quite a fe wild roses blooming.

It was while inspecting the photo for all these rosehips and sweetpea blossomgs that I spotted an anomaly. Can you spot it?

Almost in the centre of this clump of colourful swet peas, I can see a single yellow flower - some sort of rogue dandelion or daisy - a weed that has clambered up through the sweet peas to emerge among the blooms.

I love the smell of sweet peas and am really glad that there are so many flowers. They just keep on growing, as if coming through in wave after wave of colour.

Did anyone spot the snowball turnips growing below the kale? I will need to get out and lift a few more of these, as I hadn't spotted them on my round of the garden. Oops!

I love this photo in a photo of Floppity rabbit finding Scruffy cat beneath the brussel sprouts. It really is the cat's whiskers.

Floppity soon took off, so a closer inspection of the next photograph provided evidence of her escape route... this is her big furry feet and tail about to disappear further into the sprout patch.

All of these images are part of the photographs published in part 1 of today's blog.

If anyone decides to play the frugal photo game, don't forget to upload your findings to your own blog or site then let us all know where we can see them.

The sun shone all day, so the patio was the favoured spot for coffee drinking and chatting, especially when visitors arrived. Floppity got confined to barracks, as she can be such a pest, but Scruffy insisted she oined in and got all the attention.

In between baking, biscuit making and soup making, I did get around to planting all the spring bulbs. Frugaldom now has a selection of daffodils, tulips, irises, snowdrops and crocuses crammed into the planters that sit around the front of the house. A bit more compost needed to top these up but then it's all down to nature to do her good deed and make my bulbs grow.

Don't forget you can join us for regular updates from all the frugalers, with day to day results of the various money-making and money-saving challenges by visiting the Frugaldom Forums.

Saturday, 27 August 2011

Sunshine, 26C, Harvesting and my Saffron Crocus Project

Another Frugaldom Microholding Update

The weatherman said showery, so we weren't expecting sunshine and the temperature soaring to 26C - but that's what we got! This was a great bonus, as my Saffron Crocus bulbs arrived yesterday.

With nowhere organised for planting the new bulbs, today's sunshine was an open invite to get out into the garden and get some work done.

The first job of the day was clearing a space. We're making this raised bed close to the house so that I can nip out first thing in the morning to collect all the lovely saffron that I'm hoping to grow. This will make a great addition to the 'Frugal Gourmet' range, as it can accompany the quail eggs.

I had 7' of space between the patio peas and the start of the herb garden, so that's where the bed has been built. It's 30" wide and about 12" deep. After clearing the gravel down to soil level, I lined the bed with weed supressant, added some rubble and then a layer of mixed sand and soil to help provide extra drainage.

Meanwhile, H began digging soil from the hill at the foot of the garden, which is gradually being excavated as the future site of a summerhouse. Each barrow load of soil was riddled to ensure all the stones and weeds were removed before it gets tipped into the bed. As you can imagine, this is taking quite some time to do, so the bulbs won't be getting planted tonight; maybe tomorrow, if the dry weather stays with us.

Another job that was desperately needing done was that of harvesting the carrots. These have grown exceptionally well here. I'm sure that it's because I sowed the seeds in a 50:50 soil and sand mix.

We've been eating carrots for several weeks now, plus there are quite a few already blanched, bagged and frozen. Today, I lifted what was left of them and filled a bucket! These now all need to be washed, blanched and frozen for using through autumn and winter.

Once I'd emptid the carrot bed, it was weeded, dug, raked and then resown with an early variety of carrot seed that should grow over the winter. I'll feed this bed with either nettle or comfrey fertiliser, depending on what's available first.

Some weeding gets done almost every day here, it has to, otherwise the place would soon be overrun. Today, I weeded around the snowball turnips and french beans, managing to pick a few for dinner while there. There were also another couple more courgettes and patty pan squash, so it made for an excellent day's harvesting. There were even a couple of the outside tomatoes needing picked, so I'll cut more lettuce for sandwiches at lunchtime tomorrow. I might even splash out and make another quail egg salad.

A few posts back, I mentioned that I had extended the pumpkin bed by doubling it in size. I'm really glad that I took the time to do this, as the plants are growing at a rate that makes me think of Jack and the giant. The pumpkin foliage has already spread out to the edge of the larger bed and there are several melon-sized fruits hiding beneath the leaves and tendrils. There's also the occasional munching crittur!

I read an article that suggested slitting the stalks on the top of the pumpkins to ensure enough water is absorbed, but I have not attempted this. Nor have I cut out any of the extra pumpkins, as recommended, to enable only the best two or three to develop. I'll leave them another couple of weeks to see how they grow, then I'll decide from there. The biggest and best will have tiles sat under them to prevent their sinking into the soil and, hopefully, help prevent them from rotting.

Across from the pumpkin bed I have raised beds with brussel sprouts, leeks, cabbage and broccoli. This is the first year that I have grown the sprouting variety, but it seems to be coming along quite well, despite my continual war against the dreaded cabbage white butterflies. The caterpillars have hatched in several places, but I simply didn't get around to sourcing enough netting to cover them all. I'm trying my best to keep on top of the problem and the hens are helping by enjoying pecking their way through all the leaves I keep removing in a bid to rid the plants of their pests.

The first lot of quail chicks that hatched out in the incubator are now ust over 3-weeks-old. They are already feathered up, out of their brooder and into a large cage, wher they have fun running in and out of their little wooden 'houses'. It's still very difficult to tell the sexes, as most are colour variations, but the speckles have appeared on one of the normal coloured chicks, so we do know that it's a female. This first lot of hatchlings are due to be sold with the first prospective buyer expected tomorrow.

Moving further down the garden, we arrive at the micro-orchard. This is where all the ducklings are now happily out and about with Phoebe and Joey, the adult pair of white ducks.

We're still not 100% sure how many ducks and how many drakes hatched, but there is definite quacking coming from at least half of them.

These youngsters are now 6-weeks-old, are almost fully feathered and aren't much smaller than the adults. (That's Joey preening himself by the side of the pond.)

To the rear of the ducklings photos you can make out the row of late potatoes that I planted. I can hardly believe how quickly these have grown! H has had to earth them up several times already, yet they've been in the ground for less than a month.

Here's how they are looking as of this afternoon, their stalks and leaves reaching almost a metre high! Hopefully there'll be some potatoes forming beneath all that foliage, otherwise we're going to be really short of potatoes this year.

At the bottom of the micro-orchard is an old Victoria plum tree. This has served us rather well, as I've already had about 5kg of plums from it, most traded out through the local LETS group, plus others eaten or stewed down and made into crumbles. As you can see by the photo, the bulk of the fruit has still to be picked.

Many thanks to Nicky for collecting me an extra 6kg of sugar while she was in Stranraer. This means that the next lot of plums can be picked here and made into jam without worrying about having to pay £1.15 per kilo for sugar. The Tesco offer works out at about 57p per kilo, so it's a huge saving for the likes of us, at less than half the price of the local store!

Jean, if you happen to read this, I got the new blackcurrant bushes planted this afternoon and also managed to make space for the turnips.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we might be able to get the rest of the crocus bed filled with soil and get the bulbs planted. Can you tell that I'm looking forward to growing these? Let's hope that by planting Crocus Sativas bulbs, they lead to crocus satisfaction here in Frugaldom. :)

Saturday, 27 November 2010

Contemplating Self Sufficiency in the 21st Century

Self Sufficiency in 21st Century - Can it be achieved?

How could it possibly be made to work from an ordinary house with an ordinary garden? My answer to this isn't smallholding, it's microholding! We haven't any land for grazing livestock or cultivating orchards but we do have a garden and that's enough to be going on with for now.

Self-sufficiency needn't exclude generating cash, it just means gainful employment and state benefits don't count. Being self employed means we need to earn sufficient money to pay bills, taxes, National Insurance, overheads, running costs and day to day living expenses. Self sufficiency is simply the term we use to mean personally sufficient in all our needs, bill paying included. The lower the overheads, the less need to worry about how to generate sufficient cash to survive. Understanding the overheads is paramount to success, as is fully comprehending the differences between needs and wants. At this precise moment in time, we are entirely self-sufficient on the financial front but not in the homegrown produce department. The proof that it could be done is something I have always wanted to witness.

The following is a breakdown of the estimated amount we, as a household of two adults, would NEED in order to survive until such times as the microholding was working to its fullest potential. As an ordinary household, rearing livestock is out, but there's still space for poultry.

Groceries £600.00

Toiletries £35.00
Cleaning £10.00
Electricity £450.00 - £1 per day plus standing charge
Coal £115.00 - multifuel stove for hot water, heat, cooking
Logs £200.00 - multifuel stove for hot water, heat, cooking
Internet £216 including phone calles
Mobiles £0.00 - no mobiles
Telephone £144 - line rental
TV Licence £0.00 - no TV, it isn't an essential
Clothing & footwear £40.00
Gifts £0.00 - homemade
Extras £70.00
Travel £180.00
Household Insurance £45.00
Other insurance - £360.00 - 2 lots
Livestock £350.00
National Insurance £250.00 - 2 lots
Council Tax £935.00 - no water rates as no water mains, reservoir fed
TOTAL - £4,000.00

Although a TV is not an essential, the telephone and Internet access are. These are your basic contact networks with the outside world, a source of income, advertising, marketing and PR. Most of all, it's the quickest way of keeping in contact with what's happening in the world of finance - where you can source the best bargains and really work your money. The above scenario assumes that you own your own home outright - no mortgage, no rent. Between two people, it's only £5.47 per person, per day that needs to be earned in order to survive. If you have rent or a mortgage, add that in, too.

But move on from that for now, we're still preparing the microholding. We need to grow fruit and vegetables as well as have fresh eggs. Cheap Fruit Bushes - Aldi special offer was 3 for £2.49 in February 2010, so that's at least a dozen fruit bushes for under £10. I set aside a tenner.

I was still mulling over the incubator conundrum for quail egg hatching and had decided to sell 2 of the 3 portables and invest in a more substantial one. Promptly listed them on eBid and sold the first one overnight. Result!

The usual chores get done on a daily basis - sorting out the fire, stocking up the kindling (cones and sticks), chopping logs, breadmaking, laundry, seeing to the feathered friends and stopping for coffee whenever a visitor arrives. Rural living doesn't need to mean being anti-social, there are always friends and nearby neighbours who'll visit.

Reducing the overheads pound by pound or penny by penny - whatever it takes - do it. Managed to shave £2 per month off the Internet and got all standard telephone calls included, an overall annual saving of around £115.00 by the time the BT online paperfree billing discount and free calls were taken into consideration.

Dug up a few more potatoes that had survived the winter frosts, food is food, waste not, want not. The garden wasn't looking too productive at the start of the year. The coal bunker was almost empty - we were down to the dross, but the log store was full. By the end of January, there was £3641.19 left of the household budget. £210 of the £358.81 spent had gone into the electricity meter! February arrived with sub-zero temperatures.

Despite the frozen ground, we pushed on at getting the new raised bed completed in the front garden. The railway sleepers allowed for 64 square feet but I wanted 16 of those squares to form a path along the middle, so every square was easy to reach. Filled up both sides with compost and molehill soil. The hens and ducks had a great time helping by scratching and pecking, so they got left to do the job of breaking up the clumps of frozen soil.

Aldi fruit bushes came on special offer. Remained strong, though, and only bought the 4 packs of 3, as planned. Managed to get:

2 x Tayberries
4 x Raspberries
2 x Gooseberries
1 x Redcurrant
3 x Blackcurrant

On the 5th of February, I noticed that the first of the tomato and pepper seeds had germinated and popped their heads through the soil in their pots on the kitchen windowsill! That same day, the postman delivered the 2 free packs of Allinson's baking yeast, so it was a good start to the day. Dry weather meant getting into the garden so preparations were underway for getting the new fruit bushes planted.

Indoor jobs included the making of more marmalade, in order to use up some oranges and limes that I'd traded for via LETS, some kidney bean pate and a game/veg pie.

Bean Pate Recipe
Kidney beans

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Finely chopped onion

2 cloves garlic. crushed

Teaspoon Chilli - finely chopped or powdered

Teaspoon Paprika

Lightly fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil then blitz everything in a blender. It's so easy to make that you can adapt the recipe to suit your own taste. Seems to keep fine in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

The incubator was ready to set half a dozen Silkie and Pekin eggs. Wasn't 100% sure which were which, so set half a dozen.

I started a rag rug using an old hessian peanut sack and strips of material from a bag of scraps. Was full of great intentions until I got bored with it! I'm not very good at sitting still for any length of time and, apart from that, the weather had taken a peculiar turn - I ended up getting sunburned on 6th February.

We managed to get a much larger growing area dug in the furthest corner plus the fruit bushes got planted - all 21 of them from what was supposed to be 12. Last year's fruit bushes got fenced in to safeguard them from ducks, the new square foot garden got topped up with more compost and we discovered a few more potatoes that had been missed. Got a couple more meals out of them. The following day, the raised bed/square foot garden got fenced and a gate fitted. It's the only way to keep the feathered marauders from demolishing whatever gets planted.

Took some time out to go over the 2007 challenge notes to see if there were any glaring differences and there's an entry about seeing the first bumble bee of the year - in February! There's also a note saying that cigarettes were £4.29 per 20. Same brand now is £5.30 That's a 23.5% increase! If only I'd invested heavily in cigarettes, I could have made a small fortune! Are there sell by dates on them? No!

By the 9th February, we were getting 9 hours of daylight, almost two thirds of the way to the magical 14 hours that the birds need for optimum laying. Still weren't getting many eggs at that point but it was enough to avoid the need for buying them. It was also sufficient to keep the lemon curd production line operational. Soup making was at its peak, to the point that I needed to increase production to keep up with demand. Managed to find a 6 litre slow cooker for under £20 including delivery - excellent!

Despite the continuing sub-zero temperatures, the sun kept shining that week, enough for line drying laundry, which was great. By the 11th, it was -7C This was good for emptying the contents of the freezer to reorganise it, not so good for digging a duck pond! By the 13th, we saw the arrival of the first lamb in the fields adjoining Frugaldom.

13th also brought news of Aldi's fruit tree offer - cue more cheap trees! Keeping control of a strict budget is difficult but fruit trees at under £5 each is fantastic! Perhaps it's safest not to know about these bargains; what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over, and all that. Then again, look to the future and all that extra potential for homegrown apples, pears, plums and cherries.

Still spending £30 a week on electricity while trying to keep the place from freezing, but the budget is being adhered to; if money gets spent on anything outside of the basic household budget, it has to come from residual income - egg related sales, commissions, eBid, winnings and bank interest payments on existing savings. With luck, there would be a few more chicks hatching soon.

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