Biggest Kitchen Table - Food

Food is an important part of everyone's life; we have to eat every day for as long as we live. And that is one of the reasons we need to focus carefully on our food. We grow it, buy it, cook it, preserve it, freeze it and store it. Buying it costs a lot of money; growing it takes a lot of energy; wasting it is not an option. If you organise your food growing, buying and storage efficiently you'll save money because you'll grow the right amount, buy at the right price, and store it to prevent wastage.

I walked around the garden, kitchen and storage areas with a pen and paper to write down my ideas as I thought of them. Seeing everything and being there made the process easier and sparked some ideas.

FOOD - OUTSIDE
We have a food garden in the back yard. We grow all manner of fruit and vegetables and we have chickens for eggs. I see our back yard food production as very important as it supplies us with organic produce, it is the freshest food available and it gives us a small measure of self reliance. It works well in partnership with our pantry and stockpile cupboards and if there were a disaster, we could easily live on what we have in our cupboards and backyard.

Vegetables
It is important to me to plant open pollinated seeds. Unlike the regular hybrid seeds available at the plant nursery, open pollinated seeds will reproduce from their own seeds, so seed saving is a priority. Theoretically, once you have your stock of open pollinated seeds, you won't have to buy vegetable seeds again, unless you want to try new varieties. Then I would prefer to seed swap instead of buy. We have a set group of vegetables that we plant every year. Occasionally we try new (to us) varieties but we stay within that group classified as open pollinated (heirloom) seeds.

We have one major planting a year - in March/April, then fill in spots when they become vacant. We plant more tomatoes, beets, beans, peas, corn than we need because they're easily preserved by freezing, preserving/canning or when made into chutneys, relish and pickles.

Herbs
Again, we have our set group of favourites that we have growing almost all year. Parsley, chives, oregano, marjoram, bay, thyme and sage. If any of them die, I replace with a plant from the market.

Fruit
Fruit usually takes a long time to establish but it's well worth the effort. In the past year we planted grapes that I hope will survive for many years, I also plant pineapple tops - again they take two years to fruit, but the taste alone make it worth the time and effort We have bananas, passionfruit, pawpaw (papaya), lemons, oranges, mandarins (clementines), blueberries, pecans and avocados. Every year we get more fruit from our trees and I am convinced that whatever fruit we can easily grow here will be of benefit to us many years into the future. I would like to add a native raspberry to our fruit orchid but apart from that I don't want to change anything.

Most of our fruit is eaten fresh from the tree but we do freeze lemon juice to make lemon cordial in summer and mandarins are made into marmalade and passionfruit into butter, similar to lemon butter. We also grow vanilla and ginger for cooking and to make ginger beer, and turmeric for tea and stir fries.

Our changes:

1. Grow more potatoes, garlic and onions.
2. Improve our fertilisation of citrus to speed up tree growth a little.
3. Add native raspberry.
   
4. Organise our stock of vegetable seeds and store in the fridge.
5. Read more about vanilla and focus on helping our plants flower.
6. Change the lid on the worm farm for easy access.
7. Tidy up the pots and improve storage areas in the green house.
   

Things to think about:

• Are we making enough compost?
• Are the fences effective?
• Can we increase the amount of compost we produce?
• Is the chook food vermin-proof?
• Check taps and tanks for leakage.
• Check hens' nests.
• Check chicken coop for insects and snakes.
• Make sure chicken coop is predator-proof.
• Are the chickens safe and comfortable in hot and cold weather?
• Are there enough water stations in the backyard for chooks and animals?
  

FOOD -INSIDE
Once the food is in the house, it's either eaten raw, cooked or stored for later use. For this part of the audit I had to clean out and reorganise my stockpile cupboard. I will also do my pantry cupboard but that will be done sometime over the weekend. It's important to check on your stored goods every couple of months to make sure all is in order and to remind you of what you have. Don't just put food in the cupboard, use it. Make sure that when you add to your stockpile you add to the back and use from the front. That way you'll keep rotating your stock. A stockpile is dynamic, it's constantly changing - it's not there for show, it's going to keep you alive and healthy. Use it to save money and to cook from every day, as a buffer against food shortages, in an emergency or if you want, or have to, stop spending for a week or so.

This is part of the stockpile cupboard. I'm still working on this and the pantry. I have a number of items left over from the wedding that we normally wouldn't buy. These will be used soon or given away.

We have a chest freezer that I am going to run down a little. It had been full for the wedding and I've lost track of what is in there. I love that freezer. I use it to kill any bugs or larvae that might be in new grains and dry goods I buy. When these goods come from the store, they go in the freezer for a few days and are then stored in a cupboard. I need to list what's in the freezer.

Our changes:

1. Clean and reorganise stockpile cupboard.
2. Clean and reorganise the pantry.
3. Run freezer down and reorganise. Make a list of the contents of the freezer to keep track of what is in there.

Things to think about:

• Menu planning - this works for some families and not others.
• If you're growing food, how do you intend to use your excess?
• How do you safely store your food?
• Have you minimised food waste?
• Do I use leftovers wisely?
• Skills - learn to preserve/can, blanch and freeze, bake, sprout, ferment, fruit cordials.
• Make a space in your cupboard to store recycled bottles and jars.
• Do I have enough good cooked from scratch recipes to cover a two week meal rotation?
• Do I have a good selection of quick and easy fast meal recipes?
• Am I able to fill school and work lunch boxes with healthy snacks?
• Is the fridge cooling as it should?
• Do I use my oven efficiently? Baking two things at once. Make twice the amount and freeze half.
• Is my kitchen set up properly for the tasks I carry out frequently? eg, if you bake a lot, do you have all your baking equipment together. If you drink a lot of tea or coffee, do you have a tea and coffee station set up close to your stove or hot water kettle? Can the kids reach the water glasses easily?
• If you're composting, do you have a covered container for your kitchen scraps?
• Do you need to make food covers for bread, ginger beer, sourdough, yoghurt?
• Do you have enough dishcloths and tea towels/dish towels
• Do you have enough large glass or plastic storage containers? I got some 5kg plastic buckets from my local baker (free) that I store flour in. Look around for recyclables for your storage, they do just as well as store bought containers.

Food is a huge subject but if you get this right it will save you money and enable you to serve good wholesome food to your family and visitors. Please share your ideas in the comments. This is the purpose of these kitchen table discussions - we share, help, encourage and support each other in our life choices.

Monday's topic will be disposable products.