Good morning everyone.  Today we are visiting Daphne whose kitchen is in Boston, USA.

Daphne writes:

"Yes those are dirty dishes in the sink. I figure I usually have some in the afternoon so I ought to be honest about it. My husband does some of the dishes at night, but often not all of them fit into the dishwasher. I make sure it is totally clean and the dishes are put away every morning. If I'm quick, I can get it done while my eggs are cooking.

My kitchen doesn't have a lot of counter space. It is a one woman kitchen. But with a pantry (whose door is always kept open) I have plenty of storage space. The short dark shelf is for all my home canned goods. When I bought the house they called it a country kitchen. I grew up in the western US where country kitchens are huge with lots of counter space. This kitchen is pretty small by comparison, but for where I live now, Boston, it is a good sized  kitchen. I always find it interesting what the different expectations are in different parts of the country. It will be fun to watch what the kitchens are like in Australia.

Oh and the strangest thing people comment on is the container of egg shells by the stove. I keep them separate from the compost pile because I powder them in spring and feed them to my tomato plants."

I'm taking a break from kitchen sinks and simple living today so I can tell you about what's been occupying my time this past week, and on and off for the past year.  I work as the volunteer coordinator at our local Neighbourhood Centre, and with the help of a grant from our State government, we've just moved into a brand new building.  I often get emails asking me about the kind of work I do as a volunteer, so this is the ideal opportunity to answer those queries.

This is the front of the building, my office is the lower horizontal window behind that first bit of wood panel.

Our Centre is unfunded and operates with the help of about 30 volunteer workers, fund-raising, public donations and occasional government grants.  We have a  *Flexischool that currently has 20 students and three government funded teachers, and we rent space to a family support worker and a community development worker, both of whom we work closely with.

The building is as green as we could make it using the funds we had.  We have four water tanks that are plumbed to the toilets and garden hoses, solar hot water and cross ventilation.  Next year I'm applying for a grant that, I hope, will allow us to install solar panels for the electricity the building uses. 

Our mission is to work with the poor and disadvantaged but we support and assist anyone who walks through our door and asks for help. We offer a range of services, such as emergency food assistance, free counselling, free legal service, free workshops on various things like frugal and simple living, budgeting, nutrition and making healthy meals on a budget - we do this in conjunction with our local University. We have a community bus that we rent out and Hanno drives to take our seniors on shopping trips and outings.  Now we have more space we'll be starting playgroup for young mums with babies and toddlers, we have a sewing circle and teach knitting and I'm working on putting together some cooking from scratch classes.  We had a Permaculture garden at our last home and we'll be starting a new one in this new place too.  Apart from teaching people the principles of Permaculture, it's a wonderful addition to our emergency food program because we invite those people to whom we give a couple of bags of groceries to pick fresh food to take home as well.  At our new home we have a grand site for vegetables and fruit and I see a time in the future when we encourage our Flexischool students to go outside and pick fresh bananas and oranges and whatever else we grow there.  Hmmm, let me think now, what else do we do?  We have a youth program, parenting workshops and first aid for babies, and next month we're presenting the new CRP course with the local ambulance.  I supervise community service orders for teenagers and we hope the community Youth Justice program will be located at our Centre again.  This is an alternative to a court appearance for youth who have not offended before.  We offer domestic violence counselling and family relationships counselling in conjunction with other organisations who send their workers to us.  We auspice new groups and help them establish themselves under our banner and insurance, and when they're strong enough, they work independently.  And we give space to small groups were they can set up a desk and have a public presence in our town.  We also do the catering at the Bunya Dreaming Festival which is the local aboriginal festival (on tomorrow), Santa's Helpers - gifts and Christmas hampers for the poor and our annual Christmas breakfast in the park.

We do other things but I think you get the general idea.

This is the office that I share with our book keeper.  It's still in a shambles, I put up my computer after this photo was taken and I'll sort out my desk and shelves this morning, I promise.

So this past week we moved into our new home.  I worked closely with the architects and builders during the planning and construction and we have exactly the building we were hoping for.  No, that's not quite right, it's better than I ever imagined or hoped for.  I've been working in my current job for four years now and during that time we operated from old houses and there has been a feeling that we struggle along and do the best we can with what we have. But this new building, even though it's just a building, shows our community and the people with whom we work, that the poor and disadvantaged are valued and they are not hidden away or second best.

The entrance to the neighbourhood centre, the side path alongside the building leads to the Flexischool at the back.

You know, I walked the corridors in an empty building yesterday afternoon, locking up, and making our little home secure for the night and I could not help but think of the worthwhile and important work that will be done in all those rooms.  It's been a long time coming, we've been going for 16 years, but now we are in the position to offer first class service to our clients in a state of the art facility. We can teach simple and frugal living skills and offer the support and encouragement that many people need.  I never thought I'd ever be proud of a building - it's JUST a building!, but I do feel it.  I feel proud of our new Centre, I am honoured to work there and I look forward to many days when I drive down the mountain again towards home feeling that the hours in my day have been hours well spent.

* Flexischool is a small school for students who, for whatever reason, do not fit well within the government school system.

Today's kitchen belongs to Geodyne who lives in England.  I love this little kitchen and particulary like the old fashioned taps at the sink.  I would feel very much at home in this kitchen.

Geodyne writes:
 "I really enjoy your blog, as I live a similar lifestyle (without the retirement part yet!) and have lived in your area in the past as well, having grown up in Qld.

I rarely indulge in this type of blog participation, but wanted to because I love the idea of people sharing their kitchens. I live in a small villlage just outside Cambridge, UK. My kitchen is completely unrenovated 1950s, in a bungalow that reminds me of Australian houses, instead of the more normal English houses. I thought I'd clear up my kitchen sink before I took the photo, but this is what it normally looks like! I love to cook, so there's always a rack of dishes drying by the sink. I have a very pleasant outlook from my sink through a big picture window into the back garden, where I overlook the herb garden and my kitchen garden (one of three veg gardens I have), and where I can watch the chickens patrol their territory, seeing off any doves which dare enter their domain. One of my indulgences is a proper Australian clothesline in the back yard.

The second photo shows my kitchen proper taken from my back door. The kitchen had a range in the recess long before my time, and I'd love to have one there again but it's not possible at the moment. All food prep happens on the oak and granite bench in the centre of the kitchen, which I love. There are lots of pots for the aforementioned cooking, and what you can't see are the two cast-iron frypans which get daily use. They hang from the end of the bench. The gin is out to remind me that it's time to make sloe gin. It's a small kitchen, but what really makes it is the huge pantry beside where I'm standing. That allows me to store the goodies from my garden, and I make the most of it."

You can find Geodyne's blog here.

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.    

I believe today's topic is one of the most important practical things we learn about in our homes - food storage.  I hope you join with me to share what you do because I am always open improving what I do and looking for new methods.  So let's get down to it, why is it so important and what should we be doing?

Buying food is usually a never-ending expense in the household budget. If you can save money on your food bills, you'll generally save big money over the course of your life.  So it makes sense that not only should you look for bargains, buy local and get the freshest food available, you should also store your food so it doesn't deteriorate before you eat it.

I've written before now on the differences in how the northern hemisphere, particularly north America, preserves food in jars.  Canning meat, fish, beans, soup and other high protein foods is quite common there but not in Australia.  Here we tend to preserve relish, chutney, jams, tomato sauce, tomatoes and fruits that do well in a sterilsed jar with lemon juice added.  I think we follow the UK tradition, but I may be wrong.  Here we tend to commonly freeze our meat and fish if it's to be kept for a long period.  I am not going to write about freezing or preserving/canning here, I've done it in the past and it's a subject of its own, but here is a link to one of my preserving/canning posts and to a post on freezing.

Like most things in this simple life, we will all do things the way it best suits our way of living.  Hanno and I grow a lot of our own food so our methods may differ from those of you who buy everything you need.  Basically, we freeze our meat which we buy in bulk, we also freeze small amounts of fish when we buy it at the co-op.  Excesses of vegetables are frozen after blanching and stored in the freezer for up to three months.  Always bag your frozen food well., freezer burn will ruin your food if it's not wrapped correctly.  Don't think that freezing will preserve your food indefinitely.  Freezing stops the fast growth of bacteria, but the sooner you can eat the food, the better.  Long term freezing is not good for any food.  Generally three months is a good rule to work by, and that is the length of a season, so if you're freezing to see you through winter, the three month rule should work well.  Also be guided by your freezer manual though and always take into account the number of times you have power outages.  If they're frequent and long in your neck of the woods, freezing large amount of food might not turn out to be so frugal after all.

I have a food stockpile and a pantry.  The stockpile is in a separate cupboard and it contains all the unopened packets, tins and jars of food that will see us through an emergency and help us save money.  The pantry is in the kitchen and that contains food we are currently using.   As soon as a bag or container of food is taken from the stockpile and opened, it is decanted into a container and stored in the pantry.

We store a lot of grains, flour, nuts, seeds and dried goods.  Everything goes into the freezer for a period when it first comes home from the shop.  This will kill any bugs or larvae lurking within.  I try to use glass containers for these things but for the larger amounts I use food grade plastic.  I got some food grade plastic buckets for storing flour from my local baker.  These are really handy, but recently I found some Decor square buckets capable of holding 10 kgs (22 lbs).  If you can get square buckets, they'll fit in the cupboard and use the space you have more efficiently than round buckets.  Beans, chick peas, lentils, dried fruit, salt, rice, sugar, coconut, polenta etc are all purchased in bulk, if possible, and stored in large mason jars in the pantry.

We buy olive oil and rice bran oil in large tins when it's on sale and that is used for cooking and making soap.  Always check the 'use by' or 'best before' dates when you buy something you know will be stored for a while.  Look through the items to see if any have later dates, if they do, choose those.  When you bring new food home, make sure the older food is eaten first and place new food at the back, bringing the older food to the front of your cupboard or fridge.

We use the fridge for short term food storage.  Fruit and vegetables, either bought or grown in the backyard, we usually stored in the fridge.  Lettuce, capsicums (peppers), eggplant, beans, cucumbers all are stored in the vegetable crisper.  Celery is washed, the top removed, and wrapped in foil.  It will stay crisp like this for two months.  Nuts are placed in small jars and kept in the fridge.  Herbs are picked as we need them.  Food such as tomatoes, avocados, peaches, bananas, passionfruit do not benefit from refrigeration, and give off gasses that accelerate ripening in other fruit and vegetables, so I store them on the kitchen bench.  None of them last long and they're fine for their short life in a bowl on the bench.  Leaving them on the bench for a week will also allow them to develop their full flavour.  Potatoes and onions are stored in baskets at the bottom of the pantry in the dark.  If you buy potatoes or onions in plastic bags, take them out when you come home because the plastic will make them sweat and they'll rot. They both need air circulation in a cool dark space.

We buy milk when it's needed and store that in the fridge.  But you can easily freeze milk.  We always have powdered milk in the cupboard as well and I usually cook with powdered milk, not fresh.  Bread is usually baked daily, with the leftovers fed to the chickens and dog.

Learn how to use what you keep in the pantry in a variety of ways.  Experiment with your stored food and keep learning.

This is an important subject because food needs to be healthy and safe to eat every time you eat it.   One of your jobs as a homemaker is to learn about how to safely store food in the way most suited to your climate and way of living.  If you get this right, you'll save money because you'll rarely have to throw food out and your family will eat only safe food.

I could go on forever about food storage but it's time now to wait for your comments and see what's happening in your kitchen. I'm looking forward to reading them.

This is the cat food recipe I was looking for the other day but couldn't find.  It's from the Choice magazine website and was developed by the professor of Veterinary Science at Sydney University, Professor Fraser:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I never heard of other things to wash the dishes with, before coming to your blog, so I used sponges... Since I now need to learn how to knit them, I made some "sponges" out of the old blanket and wash up with these, and have to say I'm pretty happy with them. (but still need to learn how to knit, I'm just too curious.)
There's the rice cooker, that's always there (I married a man from the reunion island and he needs his rice every day...being dutch myself I love potatoes and pasta more).

 

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.