down to earth

I don't have much time today, unfortunately, so I'll answer the questions raised by yesterday's post and do a bit of blog housekeeping. I apologise for the delay in the post about food storage but I'll do that tomorrow.

The dog food recipe I gave yesterday is not suitable for cats. Unlike dogs, cats are true carnivores and need more protein and fat in their diet. You could build a cat food recipe around tinned tuna in oil with some rice and a few vegetables, but here is a site that has a downloadable cat food recipe list. Please check them out carefully, I haven't used any of the recipes, and be guided by your common sense and the fact that your cat needs high protein and fat.

Rois, Alice is a really sweet and loyal dog. She's still a very good watch dog when she can look outside but she's deaf now and almost blind, nevertheless, she's still guarding us well when she has the chance. Our vet told us she has a faulty heart value and she's growing weaker. I think this will be her last year with us. It will be a sad place here when she dies.

Ashley, thank you. Canning jars used for pantry storage don't have to be sterilised. We cook Alice's food, and Rosie's when she was alive, because some Airedales do not tolerate raw beef well. We do give her meat scraps, but a full meal of raw meat makes her sick. I'm aware of the debate about raw versus cooked dog food and that dogs evolved eating raw meat in the wild. However, I believe that now, domesticated dogs are a long way from their wild ancestors and, along with us, enjoy both raw and cooked food. Our old vet was a raw food man, our new one supports cooked food. All I know is that this food has kept the dogs healthy all their lives and neither Alice nor Rosie needed vet treatment for anything other ticks, and the ailments of old age. Alice loves cooked food but also eats a variety of raw food. She loves bananas, apples and tomatoes and even goes into the garden and picks her own cherry tomatoes when she wants them.

Cat, I'm pleased the dog food is working for you. It's a great idea to work with whatever you have on hand.

Dillpickle, the main acid loving plants are camellias, azaleas, gardenias, rhododendrons and some Australian natives. Pines and mushrooms also like acid conditions. You can add them to your compost, but not too much. I think it would be fine to add grounds to most plants as long as it was not very often. We don't drink a lot of coffee, we just have a French press when we have coffee loving visitors, and those grounds go on our blueberries.

Karrie, I would give a 75lb (34kg) dog three or four cups of this food. We give Alice (22kg) 2 cups at night as well as a meal in the morning - she gets weetbix and milk now. She also snacks throughout the day, so she's get bits of toast, a little piece of cake or a tomato. Alice has always been an active dog. If your dog isn't active, you'd have to reduce that amount.

Kristi, I did enjoy reading that article. Thank you for sending the link.

Anne, I like that principle. You're really working well with the waste around you. It does just require a bit of thought and effort and you can come up with wonderful solutions like yours.

Hi joolz, thank you. Alice is 22kg and she gets two cups of food, plus extras - see above.

Julia, we use the lawn clippings in two ways. Some are left next to the compost pile and will become the basis of our next pile. We add old paper, straw, vegetable scraps, vacuum bag contents, old straw and chicken droppings from the coup etc and it will eventually build into very good compost. The other clippings we throw into a small enclosed area in the chicken coup. They love scratching through it to find bugs and seeds and in doing so, and by adding their manure to it, make a really quick compost that is ready in about six weeks.

Pam, you can use any meat, it doesn't matter what kind. And it doesn't have to be minced, it can be chopped up into small pieces. I'll do a post on worm farms soon.

And to Roxie and all my American and Canadian friends, "mince" is ground beef but you can use any kind of meat you have on hand - cut into small pieces or ground.

So that ends the answers to yesterday's questions. Now on to the housekeeping. I've decided to have a month of reduced advertising rates in February. This offer is available only to small businesses run from home. If you are running such a business and would like a sponsor button on this blog during February, please send an email to downdottodotearthdotsponsorsatgmaildotcom for more details. Please give me some details of your business and a link to your website so I can check it out.

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY to all my fellow Australians. Today is the day we celebrate living in this beautiful and wonderful country of ours. I hope you all enjoy the day.

IMPORTANT ADDITION: I received an email from Charis, thanks Charis, regarding the feeding of farm animals - like chickens and pigs, in the UK and Europe. Please be guided by the information in this brochure.

Last week we started talking about food waste and how to prevent it. Of course it starts in the planning stage, before you even buy your food; if you can get that right, you'll be half way there. Once food is in the home it must be stored correctly then served when it's at its peak - both in flavour and nutrition. Storing food will be our subject tomorrow, today we're focusing on stopping the waste.

Our garden last year with compost piles in the background.

When you buy anything you are responsible for it and if you're living frugally you want to get the full value of it. If you buy a dog you must make sure it stays healthy and doesn't bark day and night upsetting the neighbours, your car needs to be kept in good mechanical condition and only those licensed to drive can operate it. Everything you buy comes with its own set of responsibilities - food is no exception. When you bring it home you must store it so that it doesn't deteriorate before you have a chance to eat it, and if there is food that will not be eaten by the family, it should be disposed of in an environmentally friendly way - that is your responsibility. Throwing food in the bin to be taken to the rubbish tip or putting it in the garbage disposal system isn't a solution. You're passing your responsibility on to someone else. If you believe that living more simply involves personal responsibility and independence, this is an area that you'll need to focus on.

We deal with food scraps and waste according to the value it returns to us. On the top of that hierarchy are the chickens - they turn scraps into food again so they're at the top of the chain. The chooks get plate leftovers, day old bread (I bake almost every day because we like fresh bread), leftover salad, tops of tomatoes, fruit and vegetables peels. Along with the fresh greens they're fed from the garden and the grain we buy for them, they use that food to lay eggs for us and therefore we get the most value from food waste by giving it to the chickens.

We love our dog so even though there is no returned value except for the look on her face, Alice gets left over pieces of cake, soft biscuits and all the pieces of meaty fat or gristle I trim off meat before cooking.

We have our worm farm set up on an old bathtub in the bushhouse.

The worms are the next level in the hierarchy. They get whatever food no one else wants. I put it through the food processor so it's in tiny pieces. They don't need much feeding so their leftover feasts are an occasional thing, definitely not daily.

A different time in last year's garden with the compost pile and a heap of grass clipping beside it - waiting for all the additions that will make good compost.

Potato and onion peels are put in the closed compost bin to slowly decompose. If left in the open compost, they take too long. Egg shells are left to dry, then pulverised and added to the chook food as a calcium supplement. Tea leaves or tea bags go into the general compost, coffee grounds around acid loving plants, like blueberries. Pineapple tops can be planted - in a semi-tropical or tropical climate they'll fruit in their second year. Everything else goes into the general compost.

Of course all this is dependant on having those systems and animals in your backyard. I wonder how people dispose of food waste when they live in an apartment or flat. What do you do if you live in a house with no backyard, or a backyard but no chickens, dogs or worms? Of course there is the Bokashi compost system, but I'd be very interested in knowing other means of efficient and environmentally friendly food waste disposal. Please leave a comment if you're doing something clever or different.

I promised the dog food recipe today and I think it fits in nicely here because it can help you get good use from those vegetables that are going a bit soft. It also cuts down on all those tins too.

This is taken from my post on dog food here.

HOMEMADE DOG FOOD

1 kg beef mince - if you go to a butcher you'll be able to get a lower grade and cheaper mince. Our butcher is now charging $4/kilo.
1½ cups raw brown or white rice
1 cup raw barley OR lentils
1 cup raw pasta
2 cups chopped vegetables - it can be whatever you have on hand but NOT ONIONS or LEEKS.
1 spoonful of Vegemite or peanut butter (optional)
Water

Place all the above ingredients into a big stockpot. Cover with water and stir to break up the mince. Bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes. When it's finished cooking, top up the stockpot to the rim with water and leave to cool.

When it's cold, place into portion sized plastic containers and freeze until you need them.We make this once a week. It feeds our two dogs for seven days. The dogs love it and it's got no preservatives or artifical flavourings in it. It costs around $7 a week.

They also have a scoop of Omega 3 dog biscuits in the morning. Alice weighs around 22 kgs and she gets two cups of this food per day.

HOMEMADE DOG BISCUITS

2 cups water mixed with 2 tablespoons Vegemite OR two cups beef or chicken stock. This can be homemade or from stock powder.
1 cup bread or plain/all-purpose flour
2 cups wholemeal or rye flour
1 cup rolled oats or instant oats
½ cup powdered milk
1 teaspoon yeast

These can be made in the bread machine. The post about making dog biscuits is here.

Today's photos show a very different kind of kitchen. It's Caitlin's kitchen and she is living in China.

Caitlin writes:

"So here is a photo of my kitchen sink. I am currently a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in a small town in the north west of China. The name of my city is Qingyang and it is in Gansu Province. I am about a 3 hour drive from Xi'an and the Terricotta soldiers. I have lived here for about 18 months now and feel like I am at home and a very large part of me never wants to leave.

So, the sink. Well, it is just this small box of a sink that doesnt fit much, nor does it drain well. It is also about 3 feet high and I am almost 6 feet tall, so back pains come with doing the dishes, which I avoid doing daily. There is no hot water in my apartment here, so when it is cold my hands freeze while doing the dishes. I would boil some water to do the dishes with, but my gas stove has proven dangerous and I try to use it as little as possible. I do have a small electric hot plate that I cook with, but it only works with the wok that it came with and takes a life time to boil an entire wok of water. The only hot water that I have access to comes from my shower heater which takes two hours to heat up and provides about 5 minutes worth of hot water. However, I try not to plug it in too often because the electric wiring in my bathroom has started smoking recently. The socket even exploded on me the other day with a loud POP and sparks flying everywhere. I had a man come and fix it, but now I am terrified of it and wear gloves and wrap my hand in numerous towels when plugging it in for my twice-a-week shower.

My kitchen has, as most kitchens in China, just a cement floor. I am on the sixth floor and top floor of my apartment building and when it rains all the water comes in through the windows, onto my counter and then flood the floor--which I then mop with. As well as the windows leaking, so does my ceiling, which is now cracking and falling down around me.

Yay for China and their building codes.

But even with all of the obstacles, I have managed to keep up with cooking, a hobbie I love. Some friends and I even produced an incredible Thanksgiving meal last month (minus the turkey--as there are no turkeys in China, nor ovens large enough to cook them).

I still love it here, though. It has only made me more flexible and now I know that I can live just about anywhere and repair or simply live with just about anything.

谢谢和再见

(thank you and goodbye)"

Please don't forget to comment. A comment is like payment for the time taken to post, and in this case in sending in the photos. Many of us were enthusiastic about this series, so make sure all the photos get a good number of comments. I don't want any of the ladies sending in photos to regret joining in. Thank you friends.

Tomorrow's kitchen is in France.

I am often asked what areas people should simplify first. That question really has a lot of answers, depending on the person asking. The general answer is that if you focus first on the things that help you stay alive - like food and shelter, you can't go far wrong. So today we'll continue with the food theme and discuss food waste and using your leftovers.

I don't want to look up the food waste statistics. Last time I did that I was shocked they were so high. It seemed like such a bleak and dark story of our lack of care. I do know, because I read it in a newspaper article, that currently 15 percent of food in American households is wasted every week. That means that if your food budget is $100 per week, you'd be wasting, on average, $15 a week. That's throwing $15 every week, or $780 every year, in the rubbish bin. I would expect the figures in Australia, Canada and Europe to be similar to those in America. We shame ourselves with statistics like that. There should be no, or very little, food waste in your bin at the end of the week. This is something we can all work on - I know I am guilty of leaving food too long in the fridge.

Of course the best way is to plan well so there is no wastage. Planning needs to be done at the buying stage, assisted by meal plans, freezer and stockpile lists. Often the food doesn't even get to the cooking or left over stage. It sits neglected in the fridge for weeks and is then thrown in the bin. (Insert my shamed face here.)

Meal plans are a bit like budgets. They help you look at your resources in a way that helps cut down or eliminate waste and use what you have to get the best value for your dollar/pound. If you haven't tried meal planning yet, give it a go. It may well save you lots of time, effort and money. Don't forget to include snacks, fruit and baked goods in your plans and stick the plan on the fridge so everyone knows well in advance what's for dinner and how to help you prepare it.

LINKS FOR MEAL PLANS AND RECIPES
Australian recipe collections
Meal plans with recipes
Frugal menu ideas
Downloadable Food Plans Recipe Book (USA) with meal plans
Ten tips for successful meal planning (Canada)

Once the meal is finished, how often do you have leftovers? If it's quite often, maybe you need to cook less. I do know many cooks make too much on purpose so they have leftovers for lunch the following day. I tend to make leftovers into the main meal the following night Here is a recipe I made up last week from the leftovers of roast pork. You could make the same thing with beef, lamb, goat, venison or chicken. Just make sure you make too much gravy on the first night so that you have about a cup of gravy left over.

Coarsely mince up the leftover meat. I used my food processor to do that. It will only take 30 seconds or so to do. I remember though, doing this task for my mum when I was young and using a meat grinder - one of those metal ones that you attach to the kitchen table and grind with the handle. So, of course, the old-fashioned way is also suitable, or you could just cut it up with your sharp knife. Make sure you don't over process it - you want to retain the texture of the meat, not have it like paste.

My mother used to call this dish - Hash, so here is my recipe for using leftover roast post - Pork Hash.

Peel four potatoes and boil them in a saucepan.

Add a small amount of olive oil to a frying pan, heat it and add one chopped onion, two chopped up sticks of celery and one carrot. When the vegetables are soft and golden brown, add the chopped up meat, and stir.

If you have any leftover vegetables, add them too. Stir it all together and add the gravy.

Stir until the gravy has coated the meat and everything is hot. Then transfer the meat to an oven proof dish.

When the potatoes are cooked, mash them, adding a little butter, hot milk, salt and pepper. Top the meat with the potatoes.

Cook in a hot oven for about 30 minutes or until the potatoes are golden brown.

I served ours with corn and beans from the garden and it was delicious.

On Monday I'll write about using food waste to feed the animals and how to make homemade dog food and treats. Tomorrow we'll continue with our kitchen sink photos.

I have enough kitchen photos to show for the next few weeks. When I'm coming to the end of them, I'll let you know when and where to send them. So if you're interested in having your photos featured, get your photos ready in the next three weeks. Tomorrow there is a kitchen from China and Sunday we have one from France. That's you Caitlin and Shandora! Caitlin, please send me a link to your blog if you have one.

Thank you for your visits this week. It's been a very busy one for me, mostly doing things behind the scenes that might one day make it into the blog. I hope you have a restful weekend.

I guess this is stage three of our series. You start living more simply by thinking about the changes you would like to make and you make them; then you sort out your financial situation and work on a budget. Either one of the two first steps will generally make you realise that you need to economise and rid your home and food of as many chemicals as possible and that will lead you on to the practicalities of simple living - getting back to basics.

Back when I was a girl, there were few convenience foods and generally food was fresh. During the 1950s, food started to be overly processed and had preservatives added so that it could be sold in supermarkets instead of at little corner shops. Instead of eating rolled oats we started eating corn flakes. Freshly squeezed orange juice was replaced by juice made with oranges from foreign lands, with preservative to help it last a long time and colourings to make it look fresh. Margarine started replacing butter and we spread it on sliced, white, tasteless bread.

There is no doubt about it, the more you do for yourself, the more money you'll save and the more control you'll have over the preservatives and chemicals you live with. When I first started living more simply there were so many things I wanted to do, I needed to prioritise my lists. I decided the best way for me to go would be to concentrate on those things we used a lot of or were a daily need. Enter breadmaking.

This is a rye loaf I made last week.

I love every aspect of breadmaking, maybe because my father was a baker, but the entire process makes me feel good. I like selecting my flours, I like decanting large bags of flour into smaller bins, I like reading new recipes, I like making bread - both in the breadmaker and by hand, I like decorating it with oats, seeds and cornmeal, I like the smell of bread baking and I love serving it up for lunch most days. Every one of those actions reaffirms to me my role of a provider of good food.

I think I make a pretty good loaf now but that wasn't always the case. Breadmaking is like a mini science experiment that happens in the kitchen every day. Early on I realised that to be good at it, I had to understand the process, not just enjoy the result. If you're going to make good bread consistently and not waste too much flour, you have to know what happens, why you use certain flours and the role of gluten, yeast, salt, butter/oil and water. The place I went to learn these things was Baking 911. There is a menu at the top of the page that will lead you to all sorts of excellent information. There are instructions on how to make cakes, biscuits, muffins etc but of you're interested in breadmaking, go to Bread101. If something goes wrong with your bread, you'll probably find the reason why there.

But today I'll talk about my bread recipe and encourage you to try making your own bread, even if you've never done it before. The recipe below, my general daily loaf, works with most types of flour - you'll just have to adjust the amount of water you use. You can use one type of flour or a combination of flours - whole wheat, rye, corn and barley, whatever. If you're using one of those heavy flours, a good tactic is to add a cup of white flour to the mix. It will make the bread rise more and give you a lighter loaf. This recipe can be made by hand or in the breadmaker, and if you use the breadmaker, you can cook it in the machine or use the dough setting, remove the dough when it's gone through the cycle and bake the bread in your oven. If you use fresh ingredients and follow the recipe you should get a good loaf of bread.

RECIPE

Mix the first three ingredients in a tea cup and allow it to froth up. This is called proving the yeast. If you do this, you will be certain that the yeast you're using is capable of making the bread rise.

2 teaspoons dried yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ cup warm water

4 cups baker's flour - also called strong flour or high protein flour. I used a combination of 2 cups white unbleached four and 2 cups rye flour
1½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon butter (softened) or olive oil (optional)
1 tablespoon milk powder (optional)
About 2 cups warm water, start off by adding not quite 2cups and add the rest if it's needed. You may even need more than 2 cups, it will depend on the flour and the humidity. Just add it slowly

If you use the breadmaker to mix the dough, add the ingredients according to what type of machine you have. I usually start with the flour and put everything else on top. It doesn't seem to matter much what order it goes in, as long as you mix it straight away, but if you're setting your machine to start early in the morning and loading the bucket at night, always do it in the order your machine needs.

If you dont know how to make bread by hand, read these instructions from an earlier post.

Whether you're making your bread by hand or with a machine, get your clean hands in there and feel the dough. That is the only way you'll know if you've used enough water. Learn how to judge a good dough, know when you should add more water, or more flour. You need your hands in the dough to make those judgements. Look at the dough and learn during the various stages.

Breadmaking, the ability to make a good loaf of bread every day, it a great skill to have. Once you've mastered this basic loaf, experiment with toppings and shapes. Then move on to other types of breads - bread rolls, pizzas and calzone, fruit loaf, cinnamon loaf and rolls, Easter breads and the various delicious ethnic breads.

All these skills will allow you to produce delicious and wholesome food for a fraction of the price you'd pay in the shop, and you'll probably have a better product with no preservatives. Breadmaking is not difficult but it takes time, patience and observation. If you let it, bread can teach you to slow down a little. Bread will not be rushed.

So if you've never made bread before, start with this recipe; if you've tried and failed, let this be a call to you to come back to it. When you master a good loaf, you'll feel proud of your efforts and your family will love you for giving them this steaming, hot, nutritious treat every day. If you have any problems, go to my Down to Earth forum, tell me what's happened and I, or one of the other members, will help you get back on track again. And if you do make the best loaf ever, take a photo of it and send it to me. If I get a few, I'll make a bread gallery of all our loaves made during the coming week. Don't let doubt, indifference or fear of failure stop you, dive in.