I like to think of myself as a modern pioneer.  There have always been mountains to climb and challenges to test me and even though many mainstreamers may think the life Hanno and I live is a bit extreme, to us, it's just what we do.  It does have its difficulties, there is no doubt about that, and the amount of time it takes to make a sandwich here, if you consider that we make the bread first most days, well, I'm sure many would look at us and ask: "why!?"

A new fleece blanket to keep Alice warm this winter.

There are some home tasks I like more that others but to tell you the truth, I like all work.  I am a worker bee.  I don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't have work to do everyday.  Just like when I was working for a living, work defines my days and that is how I like it.  I couldn't be one of those people who rise late, go out for lunch, socialise in the evenings and have everything done for them.  And maybe that is why this simple life, as we live it, suits us so well.  We thrive on the work.  I don't want to just slow down, be mindful, frugal and content. I want to express my simplicity every day, by simplifying not only my life and what I buy, but also by breaking down the tasks of everyday life and being prepared to home-make instead of buy. I want to stay in my home to experience my life here instead of wandering through shopping malls, never knowing the whys or wherefores of real living.

But life is generally paradoxical. 

I embrace the skills of yesteryear while writing about them everyday on my computer.  I sometimes sew while listening to my iPod.  I like the idea of the old and the new sitting comfortably side by side.  Feeling comfortable with those new technologies helps me live a rich and full life, while practising the art of simplicity.  And while I would never buy certain new gadgets, a computer, an iPod, bread maker and digital TV recorder suit the way I live very well.  For instance, I have not watched one skerrick of TV at night for many years.  If I want to watch something, I record it and watch it later.  That way I can filter out all the advertising.  The same with the iPod, it allows me to listen to the music I like without any advertisements intruding on my brain space. 

Seeing these boilproof vintage buttons sitting next to my iPod yesterday is what triggered this post.

And maybe this is where being a pioneer comes into it.  Maybe we're the ones, you and me, who will say it's okay to marry old ways with part of what's new.  I first wrote about using a breadmaker a couple of years ago when I constantly read other women apologising for using one, or writing they didn't have time to make bread.  If time is the only reason you're not making bread, buy a breadmaker.  It will give you cheaper, healthier and tastier bread than what you buy, even when you take into account the cost of buying the machine.  It will pay for itself in less than a year, maybe in less than a month if you buy one at a garage sale, and then you have the significant benefit of knowing what is in your bread.

Of course, the tough bit is knowing how much is enough and when the implementation of the old with the new just becomes unsimple. It would definitely not fit well if you had to go into debt to buy anything, but the rest is for each of us to work out for ourselves.  For me, I can happily do without TV advertising, tasteless bread, mobile phones, shopping trips, and consumer debt while being content living with a couple of things that make my life easier and more pleasurable.   This way might not suit everyone, but it suits me, it helps keep me on this track, and that, my friends, is all that matters.

The weather forecast today is for fine and mild weather.  I am here in my home and I am going to make the most of my time and the weather.  I called in to see a friend on the way home from work yesterday and she gave me some cuttings from a beautifully fragrant pink flowering shrub she had growing in her yard.  At the moment, they're sitting in a glass of water on the kitchen sink, later I'll plant them in potting soil and hope they strike.  They'll make an ideal plant for our front driveway garden.

While I'm outside I'll pot on some tomato seedlings.  I have about 10 healthy seedlings there that I've grown from seed.  I'm hoping they'll be ready to plant when our current tomatoes are finished.  I like to keep tomatoes in pots, moving them to larger pots when they need it, and plant them out when they're ready to flower.  The tomatoes we have planted in the ground now have suffered because of the rain and have not grown many flowers yet.  Hanno applied sulphate of potash to encourage flowering but so far it's not made much difference.  We may end up growing only cherry tomatoes - they grow like weeds here - and if we have to struggle with the larger ones, it might be an easy alternative.

After a lazy lunch, and probably a short nap, I'll be in my work room mending some clothes.  I think I might have one of the oldest. still-in-use nighties in Australia.  I have a nightie that has a rip in the side seam, a little white cotton number, that I've worn, on and off, for about 20 years.  The cotton is so frail now, it rips easily, but I reckon that with this mending session, I'll give it at least another summer.  I wonder if anyone else keeps their clothing in use so long.  I love to hear your story if you mend things to keep them going a long time.

And finally, I was asked by quite a few ladies for the recipe for my egg custard.  Well, get ready for one of the easiest pudding recipes you'll ever cook.

BAKED EGG CUSTARD

Break four whole eggs into a mixing bowl or jug, add ½ cup cream, 1 cup of milk, a splash of good vanilla extract (or one vanilla bean, scraped) and two tablespoons of sugar.  Mix everything well so the egg whites are broken up and everything is well combined.

Pour into an oven-proof dish, sprinkle with nutmeg, and place in a slow oven 170C/340F for about 30 minutes or until the outside is set and the middle is still a bit wobbly.  AMENDED TO ADD: place the oven-proof dish in a water bath/bain marie so the boiling water comes up to cover the bottom half of the over-proof dish.  Make sure the water is boiling. You need this gentle method of heating, not straight oven baking, for this recipe.

This is the most delicious pudding that may be eaten either warm or cold.  You could also use this as the filling in a pastry flan to make custard tarts.

I am looking forward to my day today. It will be full of gardening, baking and sewing with some cooking in the afternoon.  I'll be doing some cleaning up too, a little bit of  home maintenance to keep on top of everything, but if I don't get around to it all, there is always tomorrow.  I hope you're having a lovely week too.

Seth Godin's blog is one of a very few I read every day.  Please read his post today about consumer debt.  It makes a lot of sense.

We have Rachael's kitchen in Waco Texas today.  It looks to me like another cook's kitchen where a family might gather.

"We moved into this house, in Waco, Texas, 7.5 months ago, from Southern California. In So Cal, I had a small kitchen in a one bedroom, 700 sq ft, apartment. Now, we have our own house and I have kitchen that I really enjoy cooking in! Its very simple, so I took pictures while it was in use to make it more interesting; I was making peanut butter cookies. From where the picture was taken in the entryway to the living room and rest of the house. Behind me (the picture taker) is the dining room. There is a good sized pantry just beyond the refrigerator and I hope to fill it with lots of canned goods next summer and fall, but those plants are little bitty seedlings still, so its all hopes still."

 

"I was going to send pictures of my Kitchen sink When it looks as I like, Polished, dry and cleared.
But No these Pictures are a more Apt Image of our very busy, Productive sink!  These were taken Immediately after dinner and Shows the blackberries we had gone picking from the roadsides,  We enjoyed Blackberry ice cream for desert and have since made Blackberry cupcakes and will hopefully make a Pot or two of Jam!

We are extending soon and will have a new and improved huge kitchen and a Butlers Pantry! Yay!
But for now this small very compact kitchen achieved the Job of me downscaling and getting rid of clutter!

We are enjoying life Raising three little kids and living in a Tiny Rural town in the Victorian Eastern Central Highlands.  We have 14 hens and have just had the joy of hatching eggs!  Nothing is nicer than watching from my Kitchen window Mumma Hen taking her babies on a jaunt."

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 people sending in photos to regret joining in.  Thank you friends.   

Change is in the air. I can feel it in my bones. Housekeeping, the acts of budgeting, food production, home cooking, cleaning, and caring for a family, is becoming a more attractive option for young people to immerse themselves in. Instead of being seen as second best, it's now up there as being a healthy, dignified, modern, family-centred way of gaining balance and harmony in life. Gone are the days when ambition and promotion win every time. Now there is a gentler option, now it's okay to put yourself in the picture and decide that the work that pays the bills can function efficiently alongside the unpaid work of housekeeping. Working together, they pay the biggest and best dividends. 

After too many years of men and women working hard to buy everything they are supposed to want and need, up popped common sense to ask this question: "Why not work less and do more for myself so that I don't need so much money to live?" Could it be that simple? Living well on less, hmmm, it's got a good ring to it. Most of us have grown up with the idea that you must work to have the money to keep up with the Joneses and while that concept is the basis of our Western economies, I believe families have been short-changed by it. While our governments are saying that families are the centrepiece of the nation, they put the economy first; surely they should have equal footing. I’m not advocating we all give up work and stay home to mellow out but it shouldn’t be an all or nothing scenario. There should be an option for job sharing, part time work, two parents working at different times, working from home and home businesses. No one is telling us to cut our desires and expenses so we can give more time to family and to life. The emphasis is to build the economy, work longer, buy more, live in bigger houses and have “good debt”. Up until the second world war, before the days of credit cards and huge mortgages, we all lived very happily with less and by doing much of the work we now pay to have done for us. It's a vicious circle - we work to have the money to live well, but when we see all those things we want, we have to work more to pay for it all. We also spend more on food because we don't have the time to carefully prepare our own food. A quick burger or bucket of chicken may be handy at the end of a busy day but that and being tired and overworked is putting us in our graves too soon. 

I think the economic crisis has been another part of the push towards homekeeping - as people lose their jobs, they concentrate more on saving money in the home and realise they can save a lot and that the work is rewarding. Some have seen the sense of growing food if there is space in the backyard, some have been more aware of their grocery budget and some have started knitting, sewing and making gifts in an endeavour to enrich life and save money at the same time. Thirty-seven percent of American households are actively growing vegetable gardens now. Hanno went to our local market early on Sunday morning to buy seedlings and had to wait five minutes at 5.45am to be served. When he left, over 50 people were waiting at the little stall to buy their precious cargo. We have been buying seedlings on and off at that stall for 12 years and it's never been that busy. Things are changing. 

I think blogs have helped drive this change too. Instead of reading only what is edited and thought to be what people want to (and should) read in magazines and newspapers, guided not so gently by the influence of advertisers, along came blogs, where all we have to do it press "publish" to get our unsolicited, uncensored and unedited thoughts out there. Many of those thoughts are pedestrian and supporting the status quo but there were also many subversive blogs that showed happy housewives, beautiful homes filled with love but not much money, people being fulfilled and enriched by working in their homes and a kind of nostalgia for the old days when all that was commonplace. Blogs have shown us that the unorthodox and unconventional ways of those people not caught up in modern "must have" living are a valuable template for a way of life that allows us to enjoy home and family without working till we drop to achieve it. 

Home made baked egg custard with nutmeg topping.  Shhhh, the cook had a little taste.  Both Hanno and I agree it's drop dead delicious.  A triple D rating.

Housework and homemaking are sustainable. Whatever is put into it is paid back to the worker, not in dollars but in comfort, appreciation, happiness, satisfaction, calmness, love and security. It's one of the types of work that is self-fulfilling and gently layered. There is no corporate ladder, work can be left until tomorrow and you don't work overtime unless someone is sick, or on the odd occasion when a ballet costume needs to be made or covering the robot costume with tin foil before the school play just has to be done. More and more I see it – families with one main breadwinner, or two casual workers, whose main desire is to work enough to pay the bills but not enough to wipe out those years from 25 – 60. Vegetable gardening, DIY, home cooking, homekeeping, organisation and budgeting are making a comeback. I think a change to common sense has started, I hope there will be no going back.

Today's kitchen is from Annie Jones in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.  It looks like Annie does a lot of cooking in that kitchen.

Annie writes:

"In the first picture you'll see my double sink, with the coffee maker to the left and the dish drainer to the right. The dish drainer is holding baking stones and pizza pans. There is a lot of sunlight coming through the window, but it is shaded by our crab-apple tree in the summer.


In the second picture, taken on a different day, shows more pots and pans in the drainer. In addition to washing dishes by hand, I also use our dishwasher. You'll see my Bosch mixer on the very far left. I wouldn't want to be without it for mixing bread dough. I have a gas range and an electric combination microwave/convection oven above it. On the stovetop is a blue enamel pot. I use it exclusively for brewing a gallon of tea at a time for iced tea."

 

 

In the cooler months I love using my crockpot/slow cooker.  It tenderises cheaper cuts of meat over the long slow cooking process and it makes many kinds of excellent soup.  The trick is to keep to your cooking from scratch principles when using the crockpot; using tins of soup or stock in a carton is not an option.  You can get excellent flavour without adding any packets of sauce mix or pre-packaged soups, and you get the flavour without preservatives or artificial colourings. I thought I'd do a tutorial on a basic stew that is delicious as is, but also suitable for adding all sorts of  different vegetables, herbs and spices to change the character of it.  This version is a variation on beef stroganoff, without the mushrooms, but if you have some, go ahead and add them.

When you have the last lot of meat and onions in the pan and it's finished browning, add two tablespoons of plain/all purpose flour and stir in.

There must be something in the air.  In the course of one day, I have turned into a crazy woman with lists.  I prowled the house yesterday seeing things left undone for so long, so I made lists of what should be done sooner rather than later.  Lists are my friends but today I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by those I have made so I'm chopping the lists down to size.  I'll make a couple of master lists to work from, divide my time up, because I'm not going to get stuck in and do everything; I'll work through the lists as it pleases me.  It's not really an enormous amount of work, just tidying up, reorganisation and a bit of cleaning.  I'll start today.

My main focus is my knitting.  I've started a shawl/scarf for myself and those cold days at work.  I would love to have it finished next week, but it will take until the end of May, I think.  I'm also knitting Hanno's jumper and haven't progressed much beyond the back. I promises him he would have it by June. I wonder if there are other knitters out there like myself who have a few projects on the go at once.  I do that with books too, always reading a few at a time.  It's quite easy with non-fiction, and that is mainly what I read, because there are no characters or plots to remember.

I wonder how my gardening friends are going with their new gardens.  If you have the time to comment, I'd love to know.  I spent quite a bit of time in our vegetable garden yesterday.  I had my apron on, naturally, and wandered around with a camera in my apron pocket.  It was sunny and warm, no sound other than bird song and the gentle clucking of chooks, so while I picked vegetables for our dinner, I took these photos.  The rain has slowed the garden this year, even wiping out some of the legumes, which too much water often does, but the rest of it is looking good, a testament to that wonderful gardener I share my life with.