I have been using my large chest freezer as a cool room for storing my grains and dry goods. In this humid climate, especially in summer, it's truly been a very good way of making sure bugs and mildew don't spoil our food and thus we avoid wastage. Using the freezer this way I wasn't concerned if the electricity went off, I knew that no matter what, that food would be fine.

However, since we started eating a little bit of meat each week, I now have a small amount of meat in the freezer and I have changed my cavalier attitude towards the contents of the freezer. Now I see it as an active part of my food preservation and have been freezing more. I would be much happier with my freezer if we had our solar panels, but I have to deal with what we have now, so I don't think about what I hope to have in the future and make sure my freezer doesn't use more electricity than necessary. I do this by not putting warm or hot food in the freezer and keeping it full, even if it's with containers of frozen water.

Freezing is a very good way of preserving food. It does not sterilise food, like a water bath or pressure canner does, but it slows down changes in food and retards the growth of microorganisms due to the extreme cold. It doesn't require special equipment, except the freezer itself, and it doesn't take much time. It's much faster than using a water bath and if treated properly, the food usually retains its nutrition, texture and colour. I believe freezing is the best method of preserving food but it does cost money to keep the freezer going and you run the risk of losing the food to spoilage if your power is cut for a length of time. Our freezer is very efficient and since our local transformer was replaced a few years ago, we very rarely have power cuts.


For the best results, keep your freezer below minus 18 C (minus 0.04F). While freezing will not kill the bacteria that causes botulism, if the bacteria is present, it cannot multiply and produce harmful toxins in a freezer kept at under minus 18C. The top of your fridge freezer isn't cold enough for long term storage. It will freeze food but not at a temperature low enough to keep food for months. When we know we will add new foods to our freezer, I set the temperature lower 24 hours before adding the food. That allows the food to freeze faster. The faster food freezes, the less damage there is to the cell wall structure of the food.

There are two main points I always take care with when freezing food I want to store for a long time: blanching and wrapping. Blanching vegetables before freezing them inactivates enzymes that can spoil the food and it helps kills some micro-organisms on the surface of the vegetables. Blanching will also collapse the vegetables and that helps pack more food into a small space. I tend to blanch all vegetables I freeze because generally I don't know when they'll be used. But if you know you'll only store something for a couple of weeks, it doesn't need to be blanched.

Blanching vegetables <- click for information from the National Center for Home Food Preservation
Wash all the vegetables thoroughly. Prepare a deep pot of boiling water and have a colander and tongs ready. Fill your kitchen sinks or large bowls with cold water and ice. Blanch small amounts and time them from the moment the water returns to the boil after the vegetables have gone into the water. There is a chart here for the times most vegetables need. When blanching is complete, remove them from the boiling water and plunge the vegetables into the iced water to prevent overheating. When the vegetable is cool, drain in a colander, wrap and place in the freezer.

Wrapping
I always use freezer bags for vegetables. Place the vegetable into the bag and press gently to expel as much air as possible. If you can move the contents of the bag around a little to make a flat square package, do that because it will stack well in the freezer. Small packs are better than big ones. Make sure you mark the bag or container with the type of food and the date it was added to the freezer.

Freezing soup or sauce
This can be packed into a plastic container, suitable for freezing. Some plastic containers will crack when subjected to very low temperatures so make sure you have the right kind of container. Don't freeze glass, most of it will break.

Fill the container almost to the top. Food expands when it freezes so make sure you leave some headspace, just as you would when you're canning/bottling. The larger the container, the more headspace you'll need. For example, about 500 mls (one pint) will require a headspace of about 13mm (½ inch) and the same food in a 1 litre pack (1 quart) needs about 25 mm (1 inch). If you're freezing commercial milk, you might need to take a little bit out of the bottle to allow for expansion. Defrost milk in the fridge.

Freezer records
It's a very good idea to keep a record of what you have in your freezer. This will allow you to manage your frozen food effectively. A freezer, particularly a chest freezer, is a difficult space to manage and a record of what goes in, with the date, and what comes out, will give you an accurate freezer inventory at any time without you having to unpack it to see what's at the bottom.

If the power goes off
If you know the power will be off on a particular day, turn up the power the day before. Then, when the power goes off, unplug the freezer and cover it with blankets or quilts to insulate it. Don't open the freezer until the power comes on again. When the power comes back on, plug the freezer in again and switch it on. A freezer will usually be able to keep food safe this way for two days.

Position of a freezer
If your freezer is under a window, make sure the sun doesn't shine on it. If sun comes through that window, put up a curtain.

Having a deep freezer will allow you to store all manner of raw and cooked foods for several months, depending on the food. You'll be able to take advantage of buying meat in bulk and store harvests from your garden, or cheap buys at the markets, for the months to come. If you're new to freezing, it would be a good idea to find a book on the subject at the library so you know the ins and outs of it. If you do, you will make food storage in your home a safe and easy option.

I am looking forward to reading the ways you freeze food, particularly leftovers.

There was good news here recently. A couple of weeks ago I told you that my elder son Shane and his lovely girlfriend, Sarndra, will marry this year. Their original plan was to go to New Zealand for a few months, return here in September, marry and go to Spain to live for a while. Well, things have changed. The wedding will now be in June!

And it will be here at our home. : - )

I was really proud of them when they told us they wanted a frugal wedding. The price of the average wedding in Australia now is $35,000. I doubt I'm the only one who thinks that is madness. All that money for a one day event, all that thought and preparation going into a dress and a celebration, all that debt starting a new life. I think they should focus less on the wedding and more on the marriage.

So, Shane and Sarndra started talking about being married in a park or on the beach but after Hanno and I talked about it, and offered our home as the venue, they jumped at the chance. Sarndra was a bit hesitant, thinking it would be too much for us, but we quickly talked her around. Here they can fashion a day exactly to their liking; we have three fine dining chefs to cook - Shane, Kerry and Shane's friend Nathan; my sister is a florist and she has offered to do the flowers and my step son is a photographer. I can bake a good cake. If we can't create a wedding, who can?

But it must be beautiful too. There is no point in it being a frugal wedding if it's not a day they'll enjoy and be proud of. So now I'm trying to come up with some ideas to help them plan their big day. I started looking online and I thought, why not ask my blog friends! I'm sure many good ideas will spring from here.

The wedding will be at the beginning of winter, although we have mild winters here, no snow, very little rain and it shouldn't be too cold. We'll hire a marquee and have that set up in the backyard, with tables and chairs for about 50 people. The ceremony will be in the front garden, probably under our wisteria/rose arch - being winter, the wisteria will be bare, but the Cecil Brunner rose might be flowering at that time. Our next door neighbour, who is a florist, said we can use her coldroom for food and drinks.

Do you have any ideas you'd like to share with me? I'm starting an ideas book to show Shane and Sarndra when they visit. They're going to New Zealand at the beginning of March and will return at the end of May, so I'd like them to decide on the look they want before they go so we can work on making it happen while they're away. Remember, it must be frugal, beautiful and simple. So now it's over to you - all links, flickr photos and your ideas are welcome and appreciated. I want this to be really special. :- )

Bev welcoming everyone with her clapping sticks.
(click on the photos to enlarge them)

We had a wonderful weekend. I hope you did too. Saturday morning we were up and dressed early to go to our local annual aboriginal gathering - the Bunya Dreaming Festival, a celebration of the local Gubbi Gubbi people and aboriginal culture. It's held when the Bunya pines produce their delicious nuts and for thousands of years, the local aboriginal people gathered at this place to eat and share the nuts. In the old times, the coastal clans were invited up to the mountains, they brought fish with them and when they met, they feasted, had games and challenges, dancing and corroboree.


Message stick invitations went out to many people and about 700 attended as family groups. The festival wasn't advertised and only those invited could come along. I was invited as part of my Centre's family, and as part of this family, we helped cook and serve the food and drinks. My wonderful friend Bev, the organiser of the festival and elder of the Gubbi Gubbi, spoke to me about six months ago about us helping and we jumped at the chance to be part of this event.


Bev wanted the food to be simple and easy to walk around with. She supplied us with an amount of money and asked for something like sausages on bread, fruit, and drinks. On the invitation she asked people bring a plate of food to share. What we ended up with was the sausages on bread, onions, sauce, barbecued bunya nuts with wattleseed and wild tomato dressing, oranges, watermelon, rockmelons (cantaloupe), grapes, bananas, peaches, soup, scones and jam, tea, coffee, spring water and fruit juice, plus the shared food people brought along. There was also a bunya cooking competition and when that was judged, the pies, bread and cakes, were sliced up and shared as well. With over 700 people there, there was not one drop of alcohol, which I thought was wonderful and amazing. I'm no wowzer but it is commonplace in Australia now for alcohol to be a part of almost every social gathering so when no one turned up with beer or wine, well, I was shocked.


Oh, and part of the culture is that everything is shared, so Bev asked me to ask the volunteers who helped cook and serve, to give whatever people asked for. No one paid for anything and no one was to be refused anything. I had visions of giving out 20 sausage sandwiches but that didn't happen, we just had a few kids coming to ask for extras for the old aunties and the old people who had sent them to collect food for them. There is a very strong tradition of respect for the elders and it shone through on that day. It was a privilege to see it in action.


The main part of the day was opened up by Bev welcoming us all to her ancestral lands. She explaining what happened at the Bunya gatherings in the past, as told to her by her mother from the stories passed down over thousands of years from mother to child. Then she invited aboriginees from other places throughout Australia to come and introduce themselves to us. While she was talking, she used clapping sticks, and a man next to her played the didjeridu. I wish I could have listened more intently but I was serving food and couldn't hear everything she said.


During the rest of the time we were there we saw some artifacts poked into the sand in the dance area, and there were challenges and games. After we left the Gubbi Gubbi dancers performed and there was a corroboree and fire ceremony at sunset, where a canoe brought fire from one side of the water to the other. But we were long gone by then.


Hanno and I went home after lunch, totally exhausted. When we got home, we went to sleep on the couch. But it was a fine day, one of the best I've spent in my local area, and we were thankful that we'd been a part of it.

I often write about the natural world that lays waiting for me outside our back door. However, the part I focus on most often is that most unnatural part of our backyard - the vegetable garden. That, my friend, even with the natural bounty it delivers to us, even though it's organic and healthy and a green oasis for birds and reptiles, it's a fake rearrangement of natural elements. Those vegie out there would never grow in this area of their own accord; they are only there because they've been planted. Another instance of humans fashioning nature to suit ourselves.


And I make no apologies for that, I am happy to have a productive garden. The trick in making the natural environment work to suit us is to make sure we do no harm doing it. We don't use artificial fertilisers on our garden, we don't spray insecticides around, we don't kill snakes or lizards; we manipulate our environment knowing that we must be careful doing it.


One of those gentle manipulations is this water collection system Hanno rigged up. It's simply a 200 litre open trough that collects rain water from a down pipe attached to the roof of the chook shed. Those 200 litres are used fairly quickly, always in the space of a week, before any mosquito larvae have a chance to hatch, but it's 200 litres less that we have to take from our water tanks.


It's a similar thing on our roof. We have solar panels there which use the sun's rays to heat our water, and skylights which direct sunlight into our house to light two rooms inside without the use of electricity. I am hoping that we will buy more solar panels in the next year and not have to use any electricity from the grid, in fact, our solar generated electricity could very well go back into the grid. A very small collection point in that vast network.


If you have a vegie patch, one of the things you could easily do to become part of the natural system is to grow comfrey and keep chooks. They will provide most of your fertilisers. Comfrey is richer in nitrogen than chook poo and is easily made into a nitrogen-rich tea, although, be warned, it stinks to high heaven. If you can't do that but still want to garden organically, buy fertilisers like blood and bone (bone meal) and seaweed concentrate. Seaweed is a wonderful boost for plants and provides them with the potassium required to flower well. More flowers, more fruit and vegetables.


We're getting ready for our main planting which happens here in March. There are seeds growing in the green house and THE pineapple will soon be picked so Hanno can prepare that bed with chook poo, compost, worm castings and blood and bone. We do that every year, and in between each planting so we always have rich soil for our vegetables. I know many of our northern hemisphere friends will be planning their gardens now. Don't forget to treat the soil in your garden with respect, because unless it's healthy and teaming with microbes, your garden will be a disappointment to you.

Gardening is a wonderful use of human energy. It will provide you with nutritious food that is much fresher than anything you can buy. It does cost money to set up a garden, but once that initial investment is made, and if you buy or barter for heirloom seeds, you will continue gardening for years without having a huge amount of expense. We have budgeted $30 a month for our garden (and many months don't use that much), and that allows us to buy straw mulch, the occasional bags of cow manure, fencing wire and the like. It's a wise investment.

So who is planning a vegetable garden this year, and how many of you are first time gardeners?

Things are grim down south. They're in the middle of a heatwave and the area right along the bottom of the Australia continent, that part closest to Antarctica, is sweltering in 45 C (113 F) heat. And it will continue for several days. Ugh. There are quite a few readers from southern Australia and I send my best wishes to all of you. I know how debilitating that kind of constant heat is. Have they closed the schools?

I spent a pleasant day here yesterday and did everything I had planned for myself. We are having frequent showers of rain, so the tanks are all full, and the garden is looking as good as it gets during summer.

After a long time writing, editing and obsessing, I'll send in my book proposal at the end of this week. I'll continue to work on it until I send it to New York on Saturday, then I'll have a few days off, and start writing again; this time, the book itself. It's not the end of the proposal though. They will appraise it and make suggestions, I'll make my changes and it will go to be sold in mid-March. It's a long drawn out process but I have absolute faith in my agent and I'm grateful she's guiding me along this unknown path.

The book proposal has changed the way I go about my day-to-day activities because I fit my chores in around the writing. Of course, not everything gets done but we cope with that by either ignoring that I haven't ironed for weeks or we do patch up jobs to quickly take care of something that used to be part of a regular routine. We humans are incredibly adaptable and right here in my home, that propensity for adaptability has held me in good stead over the past few months. It's helped that Hanno is quite happy with however I choose to structure my days, and if the bathroom doesn't get cleaned for a week or two, he doesn't mind. Or at least he hasn't said he does. :- ) But this morning, that is the first thing on my agenda after I have breakfast. I will deep clean the bathroom.


I will also make a loaf of soy and linseed bread, check on my seedlings, and the garden, because for the past two days (yes, also on Australia Day) I was at work. This first morning after those days at work is always the time that helps me readjust my thoughts and attitude from being out there - mixing with everyone else, talking, socialising, having lunch with lots of people around a kitchen table, laughing, counselling, organising, managing and leading, to being here, just the two of us, mostly silent as we go about our chores. It's a good balance for me, I have two days of absolute full on bedlam, especially when our Flexischool students are there (they returned from school holidays yesterday), to my five days of housekeeping, quiet writing and gentle home tasks. I get a lot of satisfaction from the work I do on those two days, it is the icing on my lifecake, but to return again to my home for five days here with Hanno is my real joy. I am indeed a fortunate woman to be able to live this way and to have the work that I do.


There has been no sewing done for a long time, although I've been toying with a pot holder. I knitted the back of it while watching the cricket a few weeks ago, and although I've cut out the front, I haven't yet sewn it on. I'm continuing with my knitting though and do some every day. It's like a meditation to me now and I feel a bit wonky if I miss a day. I'm currently working on matching fingerless gloves and scarf. It's a lilac/pink merino blend from my stash and it's knitting up quite well.


This work I do makes me what I am; it defines my character. My voluntary work teaches me humility, and being in a position to help always encourages me to be a better person than I am. Housekeeping and gardening help keep the practical side of me focused and interested in my day-to-day life. Having something meaningful to do every day is a great gift and although there were days in my long distant past when I hated those days I had to stay home and clean up, now I see the true value of it.

So now that I've had a good sleep, I will balance that with a day's work. Another day of plodding along on the proposal, a few odds and ends along the way, and with the added bonus of a clean bathroom at the end of the day. Life's good. :- )

A reader asked recently if I'd write a post about what we eat during the week. I'm happy to do that but I think you'll see by our list that we're plain and simple people. I always cook from scratch and I tend to cook in a similar way to my mother and grandmother. We do have the occasional meal they wouldn't have known how to cook, but they're rare and I feel most comfortable with old-fashioned foods.

If you're still learning to cook, I've written a post here about developing flavour in food without adding anything artificial. I believe it's best to understand how flavours work together and how food cooks than to follow a recipe to the letter. If you have that deeper understanding, you'll be able to expand beyond your recipes and create meals that suit your family and your budget while getting the best from the food.

We usually have the same lunch - homemade bread sandwiches with salad, plus either cheese, tuna, salmon or boiled egg. Once a week we'll have scones instead of bread. We drink either tea or a cold cordial or water. I won't keep repeating that in the list below.

As you can see our vegetables were mostly in the form of salads and potatoes. We don't have much growing at the moment but this will improve when we do our big March planting. We still have potatoes from the last harvest, golden nugget pumpkins, wax beans, bok choi, lettuce, cucumbers, capsicum (peppers) and herbs, so our meals are fashioned around what we have produced. The salads are supplemented with home preserved beetroot and bread and butter cucumbers. I am buying tomatoes and onions at the moment.

So, there you have it. It's not fancy but it's usually fresh and delicious and it keeps us going. We are both pretty healthy. Hanno takes medication for high blood pressure but I'm not on any medication. I hope you get some ideas for your own meals from this meagre sample. Cooking from scratch, especially if you have fresh produce, is a very healthy way to cook.

ADDITION: Margaret has written a post about setting up a buddy system to help people learn how to carry out various household tasks, It's well worth a read.

There is no doubt about it, things are grim. Jobs and homes are being lost, prices are rising and it looks like it won't improve for a long time yet. I know there are as many different financial situations out there as there are readers but one thing is common to us all, we need to save what we can. If you've never been in the position before of having to cut back and watch your money it's very confronting. But don't be anxious about it, this is just another skill you need to learn, and when you do, you'll get better at it.

If you haven't yet worked out how much you earn and spend in a week or a month, now is the time to do that. You need to work out your current financial situation, start to track your money and then, with your partner, write out a budget that you both stick to. The most important thing to remember is that most of your savings will be small amounts. Don't worry that they are small, they all add up and will make a huge difference over the course of a month and a year. I promise you that when you get to the end of that first month, and when you look back on a full year of cuting back and saving, you'll be as proud as punch. And you should be, you will have made a big difference to your life.

So what are all those small savings you need to teach yourself about? Start at the supermarket because that's where we spend money every week. If you have several supermarkets in your immediate area, go to each one and compare the regular shelf prices, not the specials When you're satisfied that you have the cheapest one that is where you should do your regular shopping each week. But then you should check out the specials and loss leaders of each store by looking at their advertising and flyers - a loss leader is the super special a store will advertise to get you into the store. If the loss leader is something you need, buy it, and leave. Remember, you'll be doing your shopping at the cheapest supermarket from now on. If you have enough money, buy extras of those things you use all the time when you see them on special and start a stockpile.

Other supermarket/food things you can do are:

• cut down on the number of meat meals you serve during the week.
• buy generic or store brands - always check the country of origin before buying these and buy from your own country.
• check your local farmers market, if you have one, they often have the best and cheapest food.
• use your leftovers.
• cook two or more meals at once to save the cost of energy, and your time.
• serve smaller portions if you think your portions are too big.
• instead of serving a large portion of meat to everyone, serve a small portion and add a dessert at the end of the meal. A nice rice pudding or fruit cobbler will fill them just as much as meat will.
• Don't buy too much. Make use of everything you buy and don't waste one thing.
• Make your own bread - it's healthier, cheaper and tastes better.
• Make your own cleaners - buy pure soap, washing soda, borax and bicarb at the store and make what you need at home. The recipes are here.
• Pack lunches for work and school.
  

Other money saving strategies in the home include monitoring your electricity and water meters. Turn off the TV and lights when you leave the room and ask your family to do the same. Turn off the computer when it's not being used. Change your light globes to the energy saving ones.

If you have space, plant a small vegetable garden. Grow what you eat but if you only have a small amount of time for gardening, grow those vegetables you eat that are expensive, like tomatoes. If you do grow tomatoes, barter some of them with a neighbour to get things like honey or eggs.

It's not easy saving money but it's very rewarding. When you have a successful month you'll take pride in a job well done. And it will bring you closer to your goal of living simply - all the things I've written about here are the practical day-to-day tasks of a simple life. So don't be scared of doing this, don't think it's too hard or that you really want those new shoes. Now is the time for action and if you can do this, if you can cut back and teach yourself to save, you'll put yourself and your family in a much better situation if the economic situation gets worse.

If you're doing something a bit unusual and it's helping you save, please tell us about it. There are many readers here who need help and a bit of encouragement, so if you can help with your suggestions, please do. We are all in this together.

And before I go ... happy Australia Day to all my fellow Australians. :- )

Here is some delightful Sunday reading for you. Ang lives off the grid in an old Amish farm with her husband and seven, soon to be eight, children. She writes here about cutting ice with her Amish neighbours and how she and her family had lunch in one of the Amish homes. The next post up, Ice Cutting Day two, tells of the following day when the Amish came to her home. They are wonderful posts, showing a peek at another way of life where sharing and helping are just the way things are.

This is my recipe for scones. I have to warn you, I never measure anything so if these aren't quite to your liking, tweak the measurements a bit to get exactly what you like. I encourage you to do that with all your recipes. A recipe is a starting point, not an end point.

INGREDIENTS
4 cups self raising flour OR 4 cups of plain (all purpose) flour with 6 teaspoons of baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
100 grams (4 oz) room temp butter
enough buttermilk or milk to make a dough

All flours are different and flour will take more liquid on a dry day than on a humid or rainy day, so add a cup of milk to start, then add it in small amounts until you have a dough you're happy with.

METHOD
Sift the flour (and baking powder if you're using it), salt and sugar into a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until it's crumbly like breadcrumbs. Add the milk and mix.

IMPORTANT
The one thing that will mean success or failure is the way you mix your scones. Over-mixing (and over-kneading) will kill them. You need what used to be called "a light hand" when making scones. That means that when you add the milk, you mix - I use a butter knife to mix - only until the flour and milk are just combined. Then stop.

METHOD (continued)
Take the mixed dough from the bowl and place it onto a clean floured bench. Knead the dough very gently, maybe only four or five times, until the dough is smooth. Over-kneading will ruin the scones. When the outside of the dough ball is floured and smooth, pat it down with you hand to about 4 or 5 cm ( 1½ - 2 inches) in height. Cut with a wine glass and place the scones , almost touching, on a baking sheet. Place in a pre-heated hot oven to cook until golden.

OVEN TEMPERATURES
Another factor that helps scones rise is oven temperature. Baked goods have two kinds of lift - the lift they get from the raising agent you use (baking powder, yeast, bicarb etc) and also "oven lift" which comes from the hot temperature when the dough first goes into the oven. What you are aiming for is a hot oven for the first five minutes, then turn it down. So, set your oven to it's highest - mine is 250C (480F) - while you're mixing your scones. Put the scones into the high heat oven for five minutes, then turn it down to about 200C (390F) and cook until the scones are golden on top - about 15 - 20 minutes.

Just a note about the strawberry jam recipe. If you like a firm jam, add pectin to the recipe when you add the sugar. Also, in the US, make sure you use 100% pure cane sugar, not beet sugar in your jam. You need cane sugar to help jam set properly.

Happy baking everyone! Let me know how you went with your scones if you bake some.

Welcome to all the new readers who have joined us over the past week or two. I hope you enjoy reading here. Thanks to everyone who left comments, it's wonderful getting feedback, but more than that, I really love interacting with all of you and knowing that Hanno and I are not alone in our quest for a simple life.