2009 the big Selfsufficientish Year - one month challenge

[Millymollymandy]

I don't have freezer space for a year's worth of onions! My 2.5 freezers are already full to the brim!

[Flo]

There's always onion chutney or onion relish or onion jam if you have room in your store cupboard and the onion does feature in a lot of other pickling recipes too.

[ina]

One year I managed onions all year round by growing some autumn planted ones as well.

The problem I have with all those chutneys, jams, pickles etc is that a) they are expensive to make (it works out much cheaper and healthier to buy onions for a few months), and b) all that sugar and vinegar isn't good for me. Gives me heartburn. I do like the occasional cheese and pickle (or chutney) sandwich, but one jar would lasts me all year, if it kept that long...

[Millymollymandy]

I went to our newish 'British' food shop yesterday as it is near the organic health food shop that I wanted to go to (which of course we found had just moved but to nearby Lidl where were were going anyway, and now is much bigger, has loads of organic veggies and all sorts of things including tea tree oil (which I can't remember what it's for, but it's talked about on here a lot)) - sorry I've digressed somewhat - aaaaaaanyway, I just wanted to let Flo know that -

guess what I saw on the shelves there - Yup, crumble topping!

[ina]

Yup, crumble topping!

The best way to make crumbles is - take one small child and a large bowl, put ingredients in bowl, let child get on with it... (Must use about twice the normal amounts of ingredients, as child tends to "test" a lot while - ergh - crumbling.) I have fond memories of making the crumbles while my mum was baking.

[Flo]

I've made a crumble this morning with some cooked pears I've defrosted and a packet of that crumble topping whilst I dealt with shredding the prize winning cabbage (about 6 lbs of usable cabbage after stalk gone and outer leaves to a local rabbit and the toughest ones to the compost heap).

This will teach me to bid for a huge cabbage at the end of the town flower and vegetable show. But I didn't really want my own produce back (have enough marrows, runner beans, beetroot, chutney, rhubarb, red cabbage still left thanks) but decided to spend the prize money from the show (£3.25) on other produce that I didn't have. And ended up with this enormous cabbage. Hmm.

But it's all part of the self sufficient thing - the produce, even that which didn't win, went into the auction and I was only spending what I had been given for some of it. So really it counts as swaps I suppose. Must make green tomato chutney today.

The freezer is now nicely full (think five helpings of vegetable soup made with the parsnips, celery and carrot I bought and also from some of my own stuff) but should take the runner beans I'm dicing at the moment. I'd say that I shall be fairly self sufficient next month - probably more so than this month as I've spent about £10 in the supermarket for preserving and I've had reason to be elsewhere on a number of days and not taken food with me.

There again, it's swings and roundabouts as I'm using up stuff for preserving (vinegar and freezer bags for instance) to find that I need more. So what I spend today is not spent tomorrow.

[Green Aura]

Well sorry folks, but I think I'm going to have to jump ship a week early.

What we've got in the garden, apart from tomatoes, spuds and spinach is either not ready, or eaten, and we've run out of so much other stuff like loo roll etc that I'm afraid a trip to Inverness is on the cards. I did my shopping towards the end of July, on my way back from Manchester, so we've made everything last 7 weeks instead of the usual 4-5. I'll plan better for next year - promise.

On the up side, the freezer is looking very healthy, everything I've taken out over the last month, meat, fish etc, I've managed to stretch and freeze what's left so we have a healthy stock of paella, daube, beanburgers, nut loaf etc all portioned up ready to eat. And we've made a load of rowan jelly from our one small tree - enough to keep us and our daughter going til next years harvest.

I reckon we could last it out but my mother's hassling for stuff she's run out of and doesn't understand what I'm trying to do, so I've caved in. The only thing we've really had to buy during the month is milk and some veg that weren't ready or we've not grown.

To echo Flo though, September might be better next year, particularly for us northerners with later growing seasons. I definitely want another go.

[Millymollymandy]

I think you've all been doing really well so you should feel really proud of yourselves. It was only a challenge after all and you did your best, which is pretty hard really - OK so you might be self sufficient in veg or even in fruit but there are other things you need for day to day living! So well done you guys!

[Flo]

I'm going to have to get some more pickling vinegar - there's more green tomatoes than I thought.

Which month is best all depends on what you grow and what the summer is like doesn't it? There's no predicting the weather.

[Flo]

It's been an interesting challenge has this one.

I did a small shopping order to be delivered last Wednesday - including more pickling vinegar, sugar and cooking apples which I didn't have but needed and some of the fresh stuff such as spreads which were running out but not essential till tomorrow. Sure it was a cop out but it turned out to be a good cop out as someone gave me the last 3lbs of plums out of the 50lbs someone had given her - she'd run out of time and people to pass them on to and they needed using up yesterday. Had just the right ingredients for plum chutney due to going shopping. I'm doing typing up as the swap for the plums because I've more time and slightly better word processing skills.

Looking at the state of the fridge, freezer and store cupboard I should be pretty well self sufficient for the next month - unless there is the need for more preserving stuff such as sugar. Certainly there will be the need for soft brown sugar for the veggie Christmas pud in November.

I admit to having cheated and eaten out three times and bought the odd can of coke and twix from the ice cream van that passes the allotment. But for me this has not been a hair shirt challenge. It's been a reality check to see what could be done if life got really nasty for some reason.

The reality is that I need to eat an awful lot of food before I go shopping again. The freezer I bought is stuffed full and too small but the space in the flat limits what I can fit in. The dry stores are bulging out of all available space all around everywhere. Hey ho and there is still some of the summer stuff coming off the allotment. Fun and games.

Had someone said be self sufficient from 1st September to 30th September that would have been very easy indeed. On the other hand if someone had said be self sufficient from 1st August to 30th September I could probably have managed it allowing for having to buy such things as pickling vinegar, sugar for preserving, spread for bread and toilet rolls. There are just some things that you can't provide for yourself on an allotment.

[Green Aura]

I managed to hold off the shopping until Friday. My daughter set off home early in the morning and on reaching the Cairngorms she had car problems and the RAC had to tow her back to Inverness.

I figured while I was down there picking her up I'd do the shopping. I must admit it feels good to have a full pantry again, although we'd only run out of a few bits.

However it's been a great experience because not only were we able to live on much less, some of it provided by ourselves, but we made much more of what we did have. I think we'll continue to be much less reliant on the big T.

[Flo]

I'd agree with you Green Aura. I've actually not gone shopping since the one Wednesday's delivery for anything more than bread and some crumble topping when I haven't time to make my own.

I have treated myself to an organic fruit box last week as we (as in family and myself) have eaten all the fruit off the allotment already and it's a bit of an unbalanced diet without any at all. But that box will last me a good 10 days. Might treat myself to one this week and then give it a miss for a week as I shall have a backlog to use up.

[Peggy Sue]

The really good thing here is I seem to ahve got the habit and am not really shopping for as much it seems. I still have alot coming off the allotment, and stuff thats not that good (woody sweetcorn) I'm making soup from and really enjoying it. Last night the OH asked what we needed shopiing, we agreed cheese......and couldn't think of anything else!

[Andy Hamilton]

we agreed cheese......and couldn't think of anything else!

Quite right a world without cheese would be a horrible place

Egg's is about the only thing I have been buying from my greengrocer of late in fact it was good to catch up with him!

[Green Aura]

My mother wanted to go shopping this weekend, so we decided to have a day out. As she's getting a bit doddery, we decided to go to Dingwall instead of Inverness - a smaller shopping area so she could get about.

What a revelation - we all loved it. A nice little High St, not full of the usual chain stores, and a farmer's market I was all I could do to stop myself from kissing the stallholders And even though we did enter the dreaded T£sco we spent a lot less there than usual.

We came away with loads of goodies and a firm promise to start shopping there on a regular basis.